I’m currently sitting in the Philadelphia Airport waiting to board my connecting flight home from NAIC and it’s sinking in that another season of Pokémon has come and gone. It’s crazy to me how fast it feels like the year flies by. It feels like just yesterday I was flying to Monterrey to kick off the 2025-26 competitive season. As I reflect on my campaign I’d say overall it was adequate. It was my second season doing Pokémon full time, and I had another decently strong season, finishing with 1295 Championship Points and a rank of 19th on the NA Leaderboard, a slight improvement from 25th the season prior. For the third year in a row a lack of maxing out locals kept me out of the Top 16, but my focus is on the individual majors themselves and doing my best to take one down! I’m not really someone who makes a list of goals heading into a season, but if I had to say a concrete one it would be to win a major. I made it to two Top Cuts this season and my fourth finals in Masters, but still wasn’t able to climb the mountaintop. Another goal I had for myself was to improve my preparation process for majors, and I’ll dive more into it throughout this writeup, but ever since I’ve transitioned to making Pokémon my full time career I do feel like that is an area I’ve neglected a little bit. In terms of non-tournament goals I definitely have lots of those. One big one is focusing a bit more on my non-Pokémon life. I genuinely love what I do, but there are some challenges (mostly self inflicted lol) with doing Pokémon full time that I’ll explore throughout this article. One other goal for myself is to do more content. I want to do more writing and Youtube, but I haven’t made the time to produce quality content that I would be proud to publish. Hopefully this writeup can be the start of that. I have so many ideas of things I want to explore, but I need the time to make them a reality!

**I Did a Lot of Competing This Season!**

I competed in 8 Regionals, 3 ICs, and 1 SPE during the season. The fact that this has become a somewhat normal amount of events to do is still incredulous to me, but I feel like I could have done even more. One thing I try to manage during the season is burnout, and I think doing too many events can definitely contribute to that, but I had some long stretches during the season where I didn’t attend anything. I made the conscious decision to scale back how many NA events I competed in this season so 10/12 tournaments were actually in Europe or LATAM. This was definitely one of the decisions I was happiest with this season. I had the chance to visit so many great cities that I haven’t been to before and enjoy trips with friends. One of my favourite things about Pokémon is that it allows me to travel the world and visit places I otherwise wouldn’t. Pokémon is such an international game now, and I have made friends with people across the globe who I always look forward to seeing at events. One of the highlights of my year was getting to go to the Winter Olympics in Milan the week after EUIC with my friend Kamil. Him and I actually had a lot of great adventures this season alongside a lot of other Pokémon friends! I often reflect on how fortunate I am to live the life I do. I’ve turned my passion into a career where I get to teach a card game, compete in high stake competition, and journey across the globe. I’ve definitely worked really hard to make this life happen for myself, but it’s still something I never take for granted! My two year anniversary of quitting my job to do full time Pokémon is coming up and I want to write an article/make a video on what that journey was like. I have so many thoughts and insights I think people would find interesting, and I personally think it would be nice for me to reflect on the journey I’ve taken to this point. But for now lets focus on this season and the lessons learned from it!

One thing that I’m fairly good about is taking detailed notes of every match I play, so even though I don’t remember a lot of my matches in perfect detail I should be able to recap each event fairly well. One of my strengths as an individual is I’m a fairly reflective person. After each event I always like to ask myself “How was my play? How was my deck selection? How was my 60? How was my preparation?”. These are also the questions I ask each of my students whenever they are recapping an event to me. I think one of the biggest things holding people back in Pokémon and just a lot of things in life is a lack of accountability and using a growth mindset. Sometimes I think it’s hard for people to recognize when they misplayed versus getting unlucky, but I see way too many people defaulting to the latter (shoutout the legendary Azul rant). Luckily I think I’m at the level where I can recognize when I misplay, but there are probably still some plays I miss from time to time! I know there is still so much room for me to improve as a player and each event is a learning opportunity for me to apply to future tournaments!

I’m going to recap each event by going through anything interesting and talking about anything I learned from it. I’ll also give my play a score, rate the location, and include a rough cost breakdown (in CAD) since I think people would find that interesting! One of my favourite hobbies is reading, and I always bring a book with me to read between rounds. Just for fun I’ll put each book I was reading at a specific event and the score I’d give it. You will see that my favourite genre is fantasy, but if you have a good book recommendation please send it my way regardless of genre/topic!

Event 1: Monterrey, Mexico 8-3-2 64th

Play: 7/10, Location: 8.5/10, Cost: $800, Book: Golden Son (3.5/5)

**The view is always beautiful when driving in Monterrey!**

The season kicked off for me in a very familiar place, Monterrey! I spent the first 6.5 years of my life an hour west of Monterrey in a town called Saltillo. Monterrey had actually hosted a Regional in April of 2025 so it was a quick return, but I’m always happy to visit Mexico! I have to give a big shoutout to my friends Andres and Jackie for hosting me. I spend enough time in hotels throughout the year so it was really nice to get to stay at a friends home and have some locals to take me around. I am not fluent in Spanish, so having friends to help me communicate is also appreciated. I’ve actually started taking Spanish lessons, so hopefully I’ll be able to converse with my opponents whenever I travel to LATAM tournaments in the future. As a kid I went to a school that spent half the day speaking Spanish, but when I moved back to Canada I never really practiced so I lost any Spanish speaking skills that child Ciaran had. I always feel bad that whenever I travel somewhere internationally my opponents have to speak their second language to communicate with me, so hopefully one day I can speak the language of their country when I visit!

This tournament was right after Worlds, where I was coming off of a Top 32 with Gholdengo ex. Despite the solid result I didn’t think Gholdengo was a smart pick for the event. While Gholdengo was the strongest deck, it lacks comeback potential and doesn’t leave a lot of room to outplay your opponent. At a tournament like Worlds where the skill level between myself and my opponents is a lot tighter I’m ok picking a deck based off of strength, but for Regionals I want more opportunity to win through my play. This lead to me looking into Gardevoir as the best play. I was impressed with the Jellicent build Henry and company brought to Worlds so I started there. I messaged Henry to get his thoughts and he recommended the Scream Tail build to me, but for whatever reason I just preferred the Jellicent build. I think the main reason was I believed it had a better time into Gholdengo, which I expected to be the best deck. After watching Henry’s Gardevoir class on 2x speed to get some last minute tips and an evening testing with Andres I felt fairly confident with the deck.

The tournament itself started quite well. I went 6-1-1 day one, with my only loss being a brick into Pultnoir. I do have in my notes that I messed up an attachment, but apparently I prized 2 Ralts, 2 Kirlia, and Secret Box so maybe it didn’t matter that much lol. I remember thinking my play was fairly strong and 6-1-1 gave me a decent shot at making Top Cut if I could win a few rounds on Sunday.

My second round of day two started with a bricked game one and then a game 3 I should have won, but I let my opponent take back a play where he evolved to Noctowl and played Nest Ball, but forgot to take his Jewel Seeker cards before shuffling his deck. No good deed goes unpunished as he was able to stall the match to a tie, which was not helpful for making Top Cut. One thing that I wrestle with is how often to let people take things back. You’ll see throughout my season recap that it does come back to bite me a lot, but I feel bad winning that way sometimes. I know I shouldn’t and that someone misplaying is part of the game, but a lot of times if my opponent is chill I’m fairly gracious. If it’s Worlds or someone who is a top player I probably wouldn’t let them take back a misplay, but at Regionals I often do.

I beat a Joltik Box and then lost to a Gardevoir Fluttermane deck in the following round. I had a weak set up in game 3, and ultimately honored a gentlemans, but it was one of those games where I left the table knowing I could have played better. Do you ever have those matches where you know you messed up, but just can’t put your finger on the play where it went wrong? That’s the feeling I had. One thing I always recommend for practice is to record your games so you can go over them later to learn from spots like that!

The next round I definitely played really poorly into a Gholdengo deck. I threw a winning position in game one since I assumed my opponent was just playing Piper’s Worlds 60. I won game two, but game three went to time when we were only a couple turns in. My opponent had all of his Boss’s Orders so I just scooped, but it was definitely a 40-60 position, and I had a fairly good shot of winning. I knew a tie would knock us both out of Top 32 so I didn’t mind letting my opponent get a shot at cash.

I won the last round and got some good karma by finishing 64th on the dot to start of my season with 120 Championship Points.

Learnings: Listen to Henry when he recommends a Gardevoir list (him and Abaan had a same 60 mirror in finals) and maybe don’t let opponents take back plays in day two!

Event 2: Lille, France 7-1-5 79th

Play: 8.5/10, Location: 6.5/10, Cost: $850, Book: Well of Ascension (3.5/5)

When Pokémon announced the Regionals schedule for the year there were two EU Regionals back to back so I knew I would want to take advantage. I’ve been to France before, but this was my first time in Lille. It was a nice town, but there wasn’t a lot to do. I would love to see Paris get a Regionals or EUIC one day instead! I stayed with my friends Ajay, Dylan, and Kamil for this event. Kamil is from Montreal and speaks fluent French so it was nice to have a translator with us. I took French throughout Highschool, but I’m definitely not at conversational level.

Heading into the event I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to play. Milwaukee Regionals was the week prior and Gholdengo didn’t do that well. My favourite deck to play in this format was Grimmsnarl ex and the reason I had put it on the back burner was due to the prevalence of Gholdengo. I thought maybe Gholdengo would have a bit of a dip in meta share, and Charizard would go up due to Jackson winning with it the week prior. Tord had debuted the Mega Box deck in Milwaukee as well, and at the time I didn’t realize how hard that matchup was for Grimmsnarl, but I didn’t expect it to be crazy popular. I also didn’t expect most people playing it to understand all the lines into me either. When I’m not sure what to play I normally just default to whichever deck I enjoy playing the most that is meta relevant. Grimmsnarl had also just gotten access to Lillie’s Determination which was huge for the decks consistency. With the meta shifting in it’s favour and the addition of Lillie’s I locked in Grimmsnarl and was excited to play the event!

**Enjoy this photo of Kamil getting snacks for Day 2**

This tournament was plagued with ties. I finished with a disgusting 4-0-4 record after phase 1. In all 4 ties I won game 1 and then lost game 2. I maybe could have scooped some of them, but it felt like I was in 50-50 spots in most of them and there wasn’t going to be time for game 3s. I maybe could have turned one or two of the games into 1-0s, but I always find that difficult. My opponent’s definitely were on the slower side, but my deck also takes longer to play the game. I also had a situation in one of my rounds where my opponent used Cipher and put the two cards into his hand and put two other cards from his hand on top of his deck. I definitely could have called a Judge and my opponent probably would have gotten a DPL, but it didn’t feel malicious and he had Coin Bonus so I let it slide. I did think about it later that maybe he was trying to put cards on top in case I played Iono, but I felt like I was going to lose that game regardless in that spot. Another example of where maybe I need to be a bit less chill and just take a win through DPL when my opponent messes up.

Heading into the final round of the tournament I was 7-0-5. A win would push me into Top 32, but I hard bricked into a Gardevoir. I actually think I played quite well in the tournament, but my time management could have used improvement. I think I need to more aggressively scoop sometimes when I get a bad opening set up. Even though the games are playable if I get to go to a game 3 and pick second I should be heavily favoured. Instead, I’m playing a game 2 where the margin for error is much lower and then I leave myself less time for the third game. The list could have been improved as well. There is no reason I couldn’t have gotten the list to where it ended up later on in the season (Merida) had I practiced more before the event.

Learnings: Scoop faster and maybe be a little less chill!

Tunisia

Instead of flying back home between Lille and Gdansk Regionals my friends and I decided to spend the week travelling. Like I said earlier, travel is one of the best parts of playing Pokémon and I always do my best to take full advantage whenever I can. One of the nice things about being self employed is that I don’t have to worry about banking and optimizing vacation days anymore and I definitely do my best to take advantage!

I can’t remember why we picked Tunisia exactly, but we thought it would be an interesting place to visit. I think we were considering Egypt as well, but we wanted more days to see everything the country had to offer. I had never been to Africa before and I knew Tunisia had a lot of history. The trip ended up being amazing. We spent some time in the capital city Tunis, checked out the ruins, went to El Jem (2nd biggest coliseum in the World), and then went camping in the Sahara Desert. The food was also a big highlight of the trip, and we got to see bread get cooked in sand while we were at the desert camp.

After 4 days in Tunisia we hopped on a flight and made it to Gdansk for the next event!

Event 3: Gdansk, Poland 4-2-2 379th

Play: 7, Location: 7.5, Cost: $1100, Book: Hero of Ages (4.5/5)

This was my first time in Poland, and Eastern Europe in general actually! I enjoyed Gdansk, it was a very nice city. It definitely gave me fairy tale vibes in parts of the old town. I stayed at an Air B n B that one of my students runs with his partner, so shoutout to them for hooking me up with the spot!

At Lille Gholdengo had rebounded with some strong finishes so I was a bit scared to play Grimmsnarl again. I think I wrongly evaluated the matchup as heavily Gholdengo favoured at this time. I think that’s true with the build I was playing since there wasn’t Budew or a third Froslass, but with hindsight I should have played Grimmsnarl more in this format. I do eventually correct that with my pair of Top Cuts at the Mexican Regionals later in the season, but in early Mega Evolution format I did not have the correct 60 for the deck.

I ended up going back to Gardevoir Jellicent for this event to counter all the Gholdengo. I think it was a good pick for the tournament and the deck was definitely tier one, but I was definitely not 100% confident on the best way to run it. I stuck with an Arven build, but I know a lot of people were pivoting to the more “turbo” style with Latias.

I actually ended up hitting 4 Gholdengo in this tournament, but I only went 2-0-2 into them. Both the ties were super unfortunate. In both rounds I started Clefairy in one of the games, which put me in a massively disadvantaged position. The first tie I made a gentleman’s agreement with my opponent which he backed out of which was super frustrating. It was against a younger Master and I want to give him the benefit of the doubt that he didn’t fully understand what was going on. His older brother was there and talked to him after the match and my opponent did come and apologize afterwards. It didn’t really make me feel much better since it didn’t change the match result, but I did appreciate that he took accountability. The unfortunate part about gentleman’s agreements are that they aren’t enforceable. I’m still an advocate for making them, but sometimes you’re just on the wrong end of one. My other tie my opponent played an Item to search his deck under Item lock multiple times, but since it was also my fault for not stopping him I didn’t call a Judge any of the times. I feel like this is a bit of a different scenario compared to what I described in the match vs Gholdengo in Lille. Whenever a mistake is equally my fault and we can do a quick resolution I’m normally fine just letting it slide so I don’t feel bad about tying that round.

My win and in to phase 2 I just got rolled by Grimmsnarl. There wasn’t anything I could do. Both games I missed Frillish and he got turn two Rare Candy Grimmsnarl. I got the second game close to a comeback, but he hit what he needed off of an Iono. I remember thinking I played poorly in one of the games of my first loss in a mirror. I had Jellicent before my opponent, but couldn’t convert it. I definitely messed up somewhere in that game, but couldn’t immediately figure out where. He got triple Munkidori set up under Item Lock, but even with that I feel like there was a winning line I missed.

Learnings: Should have played Grimmsnarl, but the main learning was to practice into the Gholdengo matchup more and experiment with new builds.

Event 4: Buenos Aires, Argentina 7-3-1 22nd

Play: 8.5, Location: 9.5, Cost: $1350, Book: Morning Star (4/5)

Similar to the Lille + Gdansk combo, the Buenos Aires + LAIC combo has become a welcome addition to the tournament schedule. Buenos Aires is one of my favourite cities I’ve been to for Pokémon, so it was a no brainer for me to come back for the SPE. I was joined by my friends Jackson and Ajay for the tournament, and we spent around a week in the city. I don’t take SPEs as serious as Regionals since they are lower stakes, but I do use them as testing for other majors. With LAIC the next weekend I wanted to use Buenos Aires as an opportunity to figure out what I wanted to play to the IC.

The way the meta had been moving I felt like I wanted to go back to playing Gholdengo ex. It was strong into a lot of the top decks, and unlike earlier in the season, I actually thought the Gholdengo mirror had become decently skill based. I was confident I could win most mirrors into weaker players as long as I had a strong list.

The Secret Box version of Gholdengo was picking up some steam, but I personally much preferred the Prime Catcher version. I think the Prime just gives way too much value into mirror, and turns all your Arven into a gust. I know a lot of other top Gholdengo players swore by the Secret Box, but I maintain that Prime was the best way to play the deck. The 60 I ended up using was just Christian Fontenots Top 4 Gdansk list.

The main thing missing from the list was a Cornerstone counter, but I personally subscribe to the philosophy of wanting to put as few bad cards as possible into my lists. Cornerstone was maybe represented in 5-8% of the meta, and other Gholdengo decks were teching Mega Mawile ex so I thought that might scare some people away from the card. I was quite happy with this list.

Day one went fairly smooth for me. I started 5-0 before bricking into a Raging Bolt. I recovered with a win, but then tied my last round into a Dragapult deck. I 100% trolled by not scooping game two earlier. I miscalculated how impactful my Picnic Basket was going to be and I scooped two or three turns later than I should have, and by the time game three started there was only around 10 minutes left. My opponent was able to convert that game to a tie and I finished the day 6-1-1.

Day two I just needed to go 2-1 to make Top Cut, which I think is a fairly reasonable ask. I wore my boot leg River Plate jersey for day two and got chirped by some Bocca Jr fans, but also got some praise. Last year I went to a River Plate match after the SPE and it was a highlight of my trip. I love going to sporting events in foreign countries and seeing a soccer/futbol match in South America was always a bucket list item for me. I actually ended up getting interviewed by ESPN Argentina last year at the game lol.

I started day two by winning a mirror and then hard bricking into the next one I faced. Going into the final round there were so many good matchups for me to hit, but of course I get paired into the one person playing Mega Box with Cornerstone ex. There wasn’t really much I could do into this deck so I lost 2-0, but my opponent was chill and we had an enjoyable match.

I wasn’t too upset about losing my win and in, but I was fairly confident I probably would have been the favourite to win the event had I made Top Cut. The matchups were very good for me, and my list felt optimized. Jackson also lost his win and in so we ended up celebrating by going to a nice steak house for dinner. One of the best parts of travel is food, and Buenos Aires has no shortage of good meat!

Learnings: Scoop earlier!

Event 5: LAIC, Brazil 9-2-3 41st

Play: 8, Location: 9, Cost: $1500, Book: Strength of the Few (3/5)

LAIC is always one of the highlights of my year. Besides Toronto, São Paulo is the city that means the most to me. Unironically my life completely changed in this city the first time I competed at LAIC back in 2022. I made the unlikeliest of runs to Top 8 using my objectively bad “Shoegia” list, where I felt like I was just getting obscenely lucky every round. That tournament reinvigorated my love for the game and honestly changed the trajectory of my life. I would 100% not be doing Pokémon full time or maybe not even be competing today if it wasn’t for that event. I honestly get a bit emotional every year when I walk through the doors of Expo Center Norte and reflect back on how much Pokémon means to me and how many good memories I’ve made in that building.

I stayed with some legendary Canadians for this event, Geneses (2006 National Champion, iykyk), Kabir, Jack, and honorary Canadian Joe. We had a very interesting Air B n B to say the least. The apartment complex we stayed in used facial recognition to gain access to the compound. I didn’t love that, but the place we stayed was fairly nice otherwise.

Heading into the tournament I knew for sure I was going to play Gholdengo, I just had to decide on which list to bring. I actually spent a lot of time discussing the deck with Christian the night before and I was pushing to just run back his Gdansk 60. I still felt fine accepting the risk of hitting Cornerstone, but he was pushing for Mega Mawhile. In the end him and I just locked the Gdansk 60 and prayed we would dodge any Cornerstone.

I started off the day poorly, with a rare round one loss into a Jengo. The 3rd game I just whiffed a Premium Power Pro or Prime Catcher, otherwise I could have evened out my Prize Cards with a Solrock KO on a Genesect and maintained a One Prize board. It never feels good to lose round one, but I didn’t let it rattle me. Instead, I won my next 6 rounds and finished the day 7-1-1.

Heading into Day Two the goal was to go at least 4-1 and make it to Top Cut. I got paired into Daichi Shimida round one, and I knew he was on Mega Box. I thought I was cooked since I assumed he was running Cornerstone, but when we were selected to be the stream game I knew he must not be packing the Cornerstone in his deck. That hunch proved to be correct, he was running Frillish as his Gholdengo tech instead. I had Lana’s Aid in my deck so the matchup felt fairly favoured. I won an easy game one, before absolutely hard bricking to Frillish in game two. Game three I think I mismanaged my Lana’s turn, but I would have won had there been a couple more minutes. I was a bit frustrated that I got slow played at the end of game three and the Judges just sat there and watched. If you watch the stream you can see me getting into an argument with the Judges right after the game lol. While I was frustrated after the match, I also could have played better so I just shook it off and focused on my next round.

I paired into another Japanese player the next round, and this time I did hit Mega Box with Cornerstone unfortunately. I actually almost got the donk game one, but after I whiffed my opponent was able to set up and win a quick 2-0. With that loss I knew I couldn’t make Top Cut, but Top 32 was still on the table so my focus was to win the last 3 and walk away with some cash at least.

My next two rounds I hit Gholdengo mirrors, which I won quite easily. My final round I hit my guy Zach on Grimmsnarl. He wanted to ID for guaranteed Top 64, but I wanted to play since the matchup is fairly good for me. I actually ended up losing game one since I couldn’t recover from a mid game Iono, and then had a completely dead hand game two with both of my Lunatone in the Prize Cards. Zach still wanted to ID, and given that I was down 1-0 and staring down a really weak open I accepted it. Top 64 is a fairly decent result, and the cash more or less covered the cost of my South America trip. The Judges actually took our decks after the match for a deck check and told us we had to wait until standings to get them back. It took us a lot of convincing to get the Judges to understand that we were nowhere close to making Top Cut lol. After a bit of back and forth we got them back after the deck check, but it was quite funny.

Overall, my South America trip was fairly successful despite not walking away with a Top Cut. I actually decided to stay in São Paulo the week after the tournament since I was going to fly straight to Stuttgart. I booked myself a hotel next to the park and enjoyed a few more days in the city. This was my fourth time in Brazil so I felt like I had done almost every touristy thing already, but I will never get tired of Ibirapuera Park. Every day I enjoyed a walk/run through the park and I did my yearly visit to the museums located in the middle of them. Like always, I really enjoyed my time in the city, and before long it was time for me to make the journey to Stuttgart for my next Regional!

Learnings: Maybe respect Cornerstone?

Event 6: Stuttgart, Germany 5-3 460th

Play: 8, Location: 5, Cost: $1400, Book: Strength of the Few (3/5)

Looking back on the season I definitely should have skipped this event. I spent three straight weeks on the road, and that was definitely a bit much. I stayed with Kamil for this event. We didn’t stay near the venue and had to take a 30 minute bus ride each day. The town we stayed in was actually quite nice, but I would have appreciated a walk to the event day of.

Before Kamil got there I spent a day hanging out with my friend Ajay. We checked out the Mercedes museum which was actually pretty cool. I’m not a big car guy, but the museum was really well done. I did enjoy seeing the Popemobile in person! Afterwards, we checked out the Christmas Market downtown. Toronto has a nice Christmas Market that I go to sometimes, but the ones in Europe have it beat by far.

Stuttgart was introducing Phantasmal Flames to the format, and I knew I was just going to play Gholdengo again since I knew it best. Christian and I discussed changes to the list and ended up settling on adding Munkidori. The idea was to make the Jellicent matchup stronger and also open up some lines in mirror. We considered Lopunny, but decided it wasn’t necessary.

My day started with my opponent flipping over an Abra, which immediately let me know I was going to start 0-1. Sometimes you just hit jank round one and there isn’t much you can do. I lost round 3 in a mirror match. I had an egregiously bad turn where I whiffed KO on my opponents Gholdengo in the middle of the game. I remember there being a card I discarded a previous turn that I maybe should have kept, but I was like 90% to hit on the turn I whiffed. From there I won a few rounds, but then lost to a Jellicent Gardevoir in a game where I could not draw Boss’s Orders for the life of me.

I wasn’t too upset about this tournament. It definitely felt like I low rolled a bit, but that’s one of the limitations of playing Gholdengo. The deck lacks comeback potential. It is a great deck to be rocking at the top tables, but you have to get there first. The list I played actually ended up making Top 4, so it was definitely a solid play, it just didn’t work out for me.

I was definitely super happy to go home after this event. Three weeks on the road is a lot and although I enjoy travelling, it definitely was wearing on me. I had a really good travel day back to Toronto. I pretty much read the entirety of The “Strength of the Few” on the plane ride home and was coming home to a month break before my next event.

Learnings: Play a deck with more comeback potential and maybe don’t travel 3 weeks in a row.

Event 7: Toronto, Canada 5-3 431st

Play: 9, Location: 10/10, Cost: $150, Book: Blood Over Bright Haven (4/5)

Besides Worlds, this is always the event that means the most to me. Honestly, it might even mean more than Worlds to me. Toronto is home! I take great pride that when I play there is always the [CA] next to my name. For whatever reason Canadians, and more specifically Torontonians are cracked at the Pokémon TCG. It’s not even biased to say that Toronto is the city with the strongest player base in the world. Ironically though, we’ve done a pretty bad job at defending Toronto Regionals, we just win the US ones instead.

Besides repping my home, Toronto Regionals is always special since my friends and family get to attend the event and see me in my element, and this year my sisters were actually competing too! My sisters and I are very close, so it meant a lot to me that they took the time to learn about my world and actually take the massive step to try out a Regional! A big shoutout to the stream team for letting us do a feature match, it was definitely the highlight of our event! Who knows, maybe next season they will run it back!

If there was one gripe with the event, it’s that they keep hosting Toronto Regionals during winter. Toronto is an amazing city any time of year, but it’s truly a special place when it’s warm. I personally love that we get all 4 seasons here, but I know a lot of people had to miss out on the event due to flight issues. One of the moms of a Junior I teach told me she didn’t go outside once the entire weekend. She just took the train from the airport and then used the Path system to get everywhere which I thought was funny. Conversely, a lot of the kids I teach from warmer climates loved the snow. I personally thought the snow was very aesthetic for the weekend, but I know it isn’t everyone’s cup of tea!

When it came to deck selection, I was pretty settled on playing Gholdengo. I had been working on a list with Mega Lopunny ex to help counter Frillish builds of Gardevoir and finally have an answer to Cornerstone. It felt like my play with the deck was also in a really good place, so I was confident when it came time to play the event.

Toronto ended up being my most frustrating event of the year. I started 4-0, including a really intense streamed win over fellow Canadian, Rowan Stavenow. It was pretty cool that my family and friends got to witness me playing on stream in person. They normally watch all my games when I’m streamed, but to witness it in person with the crowd was awesome!

Things started to fall apart after the 4-0 start. I paired into Ian Robb in round 5 and just hard bricked both games in our match to lose in under 20 minutes. I then got a great matchup in round 6, but I just drew some more unplayable hands. One of the games my opponent misplayed from an almost unloseable position, but I whiffed Knock Out to get the punish. Round 7 I hit a mirror match, where I subsequently went draw pass in both games.

One of the traits that I think makes me such a strong player is how mentally resilient I am, but I’m not going to lie, I was tilted like crazy after a stretch of 3 rounds where I lost to completely unplayable scenarios. I calmed down fairly quickly since I understand that sometimes you low roll, but it was frustrating to have it happen at the event I care most about. When I reflect on this tournament I can be happy about my play, but this tournament solidified that it was time to give Gholdengo a break. It doesn’t matter if the deck is great on paper, it isn’t maximizing my chances of success at the events since it doesn’t allow me to consistently out play opponents that are weaker than me. Once I fall behind I kind of just lose most of the time.

I still enjoyed the rest of the weekend since all of my friends were in town, and the Farah household becomes a hotel for many international visitors! I also didn’t have long to dwell on the event since I was flying to Merida for my next event the following weekend!

Learnings: Play decks with more agency!

Event 8: Merida, Mexico 10-1-4 8th

Play: 9, Location: 9, Cost: $900, Book: Jade War (4/5)

Heading into Merida I was a bit frustrated with my season. I had already earned more than enough point to qualify for Worlds, but my sights are always set much higher than that. It’s a bit arrogant to say, but the expectation for myself is that earning a Worlds invitation should be expected and I’m striving to win events. Up until this point my best results were a Top 32 at an SPE and two Top 64s. Those are fine, but I know I’m capable of much more.

Like I mentioned above, I knew I was done with Gholdengo. I needed a deck with more agency and comeback potential. Grimmsnarl did sneaky well at Toronto, and it is my favourite deck so I was immediately drawn to it. Any excuse to play Froslass I’ll normally take! I chatted a bit with Jordan Nelle since he did well with the deck in Toronto and he sold me on the 60 he used for the event. I decided to put my trust in his list and give it a go for Merida!

**Merida 60. I always love using Spanish cards when I compete in Mexico!**

I actually wrote a tournament report for this event so if you’re interested in that go read it, but the TLDR is that I made Top 8! It felt good to have such a strong bounce back after having a rough go of it at Toronto and a fairly mediocre season up until this point. Most importantly, I had a blast playing the deck. I’d have to seriously think about it, but Grimmsnarl might be in my top 3 favourite decks of all time category alongside Chien-Pao and Klinklang.

I was fairly crushed over losing my Top 8 match, but this event was progress and definitely forward momentum for the rest of the season!

Learnings: Play decks with agency that I’m good at!

Event 9: EUIC London, England 9-4-1 190th

Play: 7.5, Location: 7, Cost: $1100, Book: Katabasis (3/5)

I had a short break after Merida before heading across the Pond to the UK. If I’m being honest, I am a bit tired of going to London every year. It is an incredible city, but it’s ludicrously expensive and the convention centre is very disconnected from the city center. I am fortunate that I have family who live in London, so that helps soften the blow on my bank account every year. My dad’s cousin and his family live in Bromley, so just a bit outside the city, but I am always grateful for their hospitality. In Canada I don’t have any cousins close in age to me, but in London I have three second cousins who are all within 2 years of me. I always enjoy getting to spend the week with them and doing our yearly trivia Wednesday at The Railway Tavern. It’s always funny since their friend groups all treat my appearance every year kind of like a guest episode out of a sitcom. This year I flew in on my birthday, so we celebrated with dinner and then a night of very poorly played trivia. I’m not a big drinker, but whenever it’s EUIC week I find myself indulging a little more than usual. The Brits really do drink beer like it’s water!

In terms of deck selection I knew I was running back Grimmsnarl. I had just made Top Cut with it in Merida, and I thought it was well positioned in the EUIC metagame. I did cut the 2nd Buddy-Buddy Poffin for an Energy Switch, which I didn’t love since I was losing some consistency, but the Energy Switch did prove to be a fairly useful card over the weekend.

It was an early morning for me since the commute was a little over an hour from my family’s house in Bromley. I didn’t mind since I just used the time to read and mentally prepare for the day. I arrived with plenty of time to spare and was treated to quite the challenging round one opponent, Junhee Lee. I wasn’t familiar with Junhee when I played against him, but I looked him up after and he has qualified for Worlds before. I ended up losing round one due to prizing Double Grimmsnarl in the first game where I had a perfect start otherwise. Junhee actually left me a gigantic opening since he left 60 damage on a Scream Tail, but I whiffed Grimmsnarl off of my Prize Cards. The second game I got off to too slow of a start, and to Junhee’s credit, he played game two very well and found the necessary checkmate positions.

I won my next two rounds, but then lost round 4 due to Prizing both Grimmsnarls in game 3! The odds of both Grimmsnarl being in the Prize Cards is roughly 1 ever 120 games, so to have it happen twice in the first four rounds was quite frustrating. I couldn’t really do much so I just focused on locking in and winning the last four rounds of phase one so I’d have a shot at Top Cut the following day. I won the next round, but then tied a round that I technically won, but I had forgotten that we had gone back to +3 turns for EUIC instead of the +1 turns we had been using up until that point. My mistake actually lead to what was probably my most unpleasant interaction with an opponent all season, but it was my fault for making the mistake in the first place.

In game 3 of my match my opponent took a KO with Gholdengo on turn 1 of time and I showed that I had Night Stretcher for Blood Moon if I had an extra turn to win the game. My opponent actually circled win for me on the slip, but I let him know that I had already taken my turn of time and it’s a tie if he wants to record that instead. My opponent was actually not even aware that we were in turns, but obviously accepts the tie since it keeps him in the tournament. As I’m bringing the slip up to the hive it hits me that we had switched to +3 turns for this tournament, and in actuality I should have won the match. I found a Judge and confirmed that we were playing +3 turns and described what happened. He told me that we can’t change the result and I was fine with that since it was my mistake. The Judge quickly confirmed with one of the Head Judges and he actually said we were allowed to overturn the result.

We went to the Hive and called my opponent to the front where the Judge explained what I was claiming. I want to give my opponent the benefit of the doubt, since I would probably be quite upset if my opponent said he won when I thought we had tied. I just explained to him that we were playing +3 turns and not +1, which is why I switched our result to a tie. My opponent got very aggressive and confrontational from the start of our interaction and just started coming up with plays and a story that made no sense. I was able to describe exactly how the last 3 turns of the match played out, and my argument was that if I was trying to be dishonest I would have just kept the slip with me as the winner in the first place. The Judges believed what I was saying, but since we had crossed out win and signed the slip with tie that they were going to uphold that result. I had no issue with this ruling since it was my fault in the first place for forgetting we switched to +3 turns, but it left a really bad taste in my mouth how aggressive my opponent got when it would have been super easy to just have a cordial discussion about the situation. The Head Judge actually found me on day two and let me know he was going to file an incident report about the interaction since it didn’t sit right with him. I appreciated that he took the time to follow up with me, and I thanked him for how he handled it, and once again let him know I had no issue with the ruling since it was my fault in the first place. It was a painful mistake for me to make, but hopefully I’ll never forget how many turns of time I’m playing at an event again!

Surprisingly I wasn’t too upset about what had just transpired, and I was able to lock in quite quickly for my win and in to phase two. While I knew I couldn’t make Top Cut anymore, Top 16 or cash was still on the table if I could win out. I had two fairly easy rounds to close out the day. Winning both my last round of phase one and first round of phase two 2-0 to end the day 6-2-1. I had a long journey back to my accommodations, but luckily Kamil was also staying with us so I had him to keep me company on the bus ride home. Him and I grabbed some takeout sushi and then immediately went to bed since we had to wake up early to play the next day.

My goal for phase two was to win all five of my matches to hopefully sneak into Top 16, but at the minimum I wanted to go 4-0-1 to have a shot at cash. I had a comical start to the day as two Grimmsnarls were in my Prize Cards for the third time in ten rounds! Luckily for me I actually got a fairly strong Froslass board which allowed me to take a Grimmsnarl off of my first Prize Card. From there I cruised to victory, but right next to me was my podcast host Aneil who also prized two Grimmsnarl in his match! Unfortunately for him, he wasn’t as fortuitous as I was and ended up losing his round.

I won my next two rounds after that before succumbing to Justin Templer’s Mega Absol deck. The matchup is difficult, but not unwinnable. I think I took the Budew lock off a turn early in the first game, and I end up taking the second game of the set, but the third game is an all out sprint from both sides where he was able to come out ahead. If I won my last round I had a shot at bubbling into Top 64, but it was unlikely. I ended up losing anyways to Öjvind’s Charizard deck. I won game one, but then overbenched game two and lost to a Cruel Arrow line. Game three I had a nice opening hand, but my Secret Box was in the Prize Cards which stunted my set up too much.

I ended the event with a disappointing Top 256. Overall I couldn’t be too upset since I don’t think I played amazing. I didn’t need to dwell on the tournament for too long since I was actually heading straight to Milan to stay with Kamil and Maëlle (his fiancee) for a week. The two of them moved to Italy a couple years ago when Maëlle was doing her Masters, but ended up staying since she was working there. The Winter Olympics were actually taking place at the same time so it was perfect timing for a visit!

Learnings: Stay more up to date with rule changes!

Milan, Italy

I had been to the southern part of Italy before, but this was my first time in Milan. Overall, I was quite impressed with the city. It was great to get to visit Kamil and his fiancee before they moved back to Canada, and it helped that I had someone fluent in Italian to take me around.

Originally we were planning on going to numerous Winter Olympic events, but a lot of the more affordable events were taking place 6 hours away in Cortina. I was interested in checking out figure or speed skating in Milan, but the prices were crazy. Even as a fan of sport I couldn’t justify the price. We did decide to splurge and go to the Gold Medal Women’s Hockey match between Canada and the USA. Despite being Canadian, I’m actually not a hockey fan, but I know how monumental a Canada Vs USA Ice Hockey match is so I knew it would be exciting. The Canadian team were heavy underdogs, but actually had a 1-0 lead until conceding a goal at the very end of regulation and losing in overtime. The atmosphere was fantastic, and I’d say the arena was 80%+ Canadian fans, which definitely added to the vibe.

Additionaly, I got the chance to check out an AC Milan match while there. It was my first time going to a Series A match, and the sight lines at the stadium were really good from our seats. After this match I’ve now been to a game from the MLS, Series A, La Liga, Women’s World Cup, Liga Profesional de Fútbol, and Champions League (where I ironically watched AC Milan play Vs Atletico Madrid). Despite soccer not being my favourite sport it is cool how many different games and atmospheres I’ve gotten to experience.

I didn’t do much Pokémon during my vacation, but Kamil did take me to an Italian locals. I was dumbfounded when I found out how late they start play out there. By the time we finished it was past midnight. Our friend Dylan wanted to take us clubbing after the locals so he hooked us up with a good night out.

No trip to Milan would be complete without a trip to the famous Lake Como. Kamil and I took a day trip right before I left. The town we went to was definitely gorgeous and we took a walk through a really nice botanical garden on the lake. We had lunch at a culinary hotspot before taking the train back to Milan.

My trip to Milan was such a welcome break in the middle of such a busy season. I travel so much, but it feels a bit rare to do non-Pokémon travel. It was good to disconnect from the game for a bit and recharge. I had a fairly smooth travel day home to Toronto, and had a couple weeks off before my next Regionals in Querétaro.

Event 10: Querétaro, Mexico 13-2-2 2nd

Play: 9, Location: 9, Cost: $1300, Book: Jade Legacy (5/5)

Querétaro was the third and final Mexican Regional of the season. I really enjoyed attending each of the Mexican events and hope that Pokémon continues to host numerous Regionals here each season! This Regional fell on Easter weekend, which made flight prices crazy expensive. To save on cost I actually flew in early during the week and left a bit after the weekend. I wasn’t complaining since I really enjoyed the city, and had extra days to check out as many taquerias as I could! On the days preceding the tournament I had a lot of foodie adventures. My friend Andres and his wife Jackie came to the tournament with their son and we went to a really nice breakfast spot that served some of the best pancakes I’ve ever had. My friend Ajay and I had tamales from a hole in the wall, lots of tacos, and went to a really nice traditional Mexican restaurant. Also, the place we stayed had an elevator that went directly to our unit which was super cool!

Heading into the Regional my deck choice should have been easy, since I was doing so well with Grimmsnarl over my past two events. The deck had also received a nice buff heading into the tournament with the release of Poke Pad and 70 HP Snorunt. However, Munkidori Froslass also became a meta contender with those cards as well. I love playing MunkiLass, but I didn’t feel as confident piloting that compared to Grimmsnarl so I just stuck with what I knew I could play to the best of my ability. My big decision was if I was going to run my 4 Pokepad list or if I was going to play my list that included Blood Moon Ursaluna ex. The Mexican player base tends to favour aggressive decks like Raging Bolt a bit more than other regions so I decided to keep Blood Moon in the list to help me with those matchups. Andrew Hedrick was staying with me and my friend Ajay for this event and he had done well the weekend prior with a Grimmsnarl list that used Professor’s Reasearch instead of Arven. Him and I debated the merits of that build, but I preferred Arven so I just stuck with my build. I really liked my list for this event and felt super confident in my Grimmsnarl play heading into the day ahead.

**Querétaro 60. I forgot my HGSS Energies at Home….**

Note: Originally, I was going to write a tournament report for Querétaro, but I was honestly so crushed after losing finals I couldn’t bring myself to do it. My notes were super detailed from this event so I’ll use this recap to be my mini tournament report!

The tournament venue was actually a bit isolated from the rest of the city, but it was on top of a small mountain. There was a patio that I would go to between rounds to chill that had a really nice view of the city which I appreciated. We got to the venue fairly early so I just chilled with friends before pairings went up and I got ready to start the event.

I actually started this tournament with a loss. I hard bricked game one, and then started Bloodmoon in game two which ended up costing me. It is never good to start 0-1 since it messes up your resistance and makes the margin for error razor thin. After round one it felt like it was going to be one of those days where things just don’t go well, but to my pleasant surprise I actually ended up going on a 10 round win streak (12 if you include Top Cut) immediately after.

Round two I actually hit a Munki Lass, a matchup I knew extensively well. There are some tricks your opponent can do with Sudowoodo, but I knew the lines to make sure I never lost to that and had a fairly easy 2-0 win despite a slow start in game one. My next two rounds were quick wins against Zoroark and Jellicent Gardevoir. Round 5 I had a fairly close match against a Zoroark with Darmanitan. I didn’t play Shaymin so I had to be mindful that my Froslass were never safe. If your opponent doesn’t play Darmanitan I like to take more of a Munki Lass strategy, but I used an aggressive Grimmsnarl approach instead that paid off as I improved to 4-1.

Round 6 I hit an opponent that I actually played in Monterrey the season prior. He let me know that if I was playing Munki Lass again it would be a quick victory for me. When he flipped over his basics and took his first turn I quickly realized I was up against Pidgeot Control. As long as I didn’t prize all 3 Froslass this matchup is as close to an autowin as it gets. In both games I just set up Froslass and cruised to victory.

Round 7 I hit Joltik Box which is up there as my worst matchup. The Iron Hands puts on a lot of pressure and then Galvantula just lets them trade so well into Grimmsnarl. The first game I hard bricked, and then I thought the match was lost when I started Blood Moon in my second game. My opponent started with a Fezandipiti which he was using to Cruel Arrow my board. I was able to get a turn where I used Energy Switch and Boss’s Orders to Knock Out his Iron Hands he was setting up on the bench. While this was happening his Fez had been taking Freezing Shroud and Adrena Brain damage. I was able to get a 4 Prize turn using Grimmsnarl and I won a very unorthodox game 2. Game 3 I started Blood Moon again! I had to play this round on extreme difficulty mode I guess lol. The end of my second turn I’m able to get a board of 2 Morgrem and 2 Froslass before my opponent uses Prime Catcher to Amp You Very Much one of the Froslass. I have to hit into the Iron Hands with a Grimmsnarl, but it goes down immediately to Galvantula. On my following turn I can get a 5 Prize Turn with Grimmsnarl, but more importantly I can wipe all the Grass Energy from the board. This would force my opponent to hit an Iron Leaves, Crispin, and a 2nd Grass Energy to Knock Out Grimmsnarl for game. My opponent can’t get that combination and I escape with a win. This was definitely my closest match of swiss, and a match I think I was able to win by navigating some pretty weird boards which is always super satisfying!

Round 8 I hit a Solrock Lunatone version of Raging Bolt. I almost threw this game since I broke Budew lock before I was fully set up and got hit by a very unexpected Unfair Stamp. My opponent would have won game one had he hit his Stadium bump to clear his Area Zero, but I got lucky and faded it. Game two I got a fairly normal set up and won due to how strong Froslass is into Raging Bolt.

Round 9 I hit another Raging Bolt. I get a perfect set up turn one and cruise to victory in the first game. In the second game I made a really great read which bought me the time I needed to set up. My opponent started Mega Kanga and benched Wellspring with an Energy, but didn’t bench Latias. On my turn I decided to go for Budew instead of TM: Evolution to make it harder for my opponent to get a Torrential Pump off. This play ends up paying off big time as he whiffs turn two Wellspring attack and I’m able to take my time setting up a stable board which leads to a quick victory from there.

With that round I had finished the first day of competition with a record of 8-1. I will never complain about a start like that, as it put me in a very strong position to push for Top Cut the following day. I went to dinner with some of the other North American players at the event, including the BC crew. When I got back to our accommodations I actually stayed up a bit late since I really wanted to finish my book (Jade Legacy), but I still got to sleep at a reasonable hour.

I woke up early for day two and took an Uber to the venue where we got there with ample time to relax before round 10. I got paired into a Mega Absol deck which was not ideal, but luckily my opponent didn’t know how to play the matchup. Game one he went for Cornerstone which lets me just play my deck like normal. I set up multiple Froslass and just ignored the Cornerstone, instead taking out his Munkidoris. Eventually his board is just a Cornerstone which I’m able to target down with Adrena Brains. Game two he just hard bricks and I proceed to a 9-1 record. Top Cut needed a record of 10-2-1 so I just needed one more win in my next two matches, but I much preferred winning Round 11 so I could ID myself out of Assymetrical Top Cut.

Heading into round 11 there were four of us at 9-1. There was a Grimmsnarl and two Dragapult Dusknoirs, one of them being Hedrick. I definitely preferred to hit a Dragapult since the matchup is favoured, and I personally don’t enjoy Grimmsnarl mirror. Luckily I hit the Dragapult that wasn’t Hedrick. I win a pretty straightforward game one, but game two he made me work for it. I got a good start, jumping out to a 6-3 lead with a Knock Out on Latias and Budew with a Grimmsnarl. My opponent caught me off guard with his one of Rare Candy making a Dusknoir that helped him Knock Out my only Grimmsnarl and then he used Hawlucha to take out my Impidimp on the bench. He also used Iono on his turn, but I hit Arven, Poke Pad, and Energy Switch. I was able to get a Secret Box off of Arven which let me set up two Munkidori and get TM: Evolution. I used double Adrena Brain to set a Drakloak to 70 and then did TM: Evolution to make a Morgrem and second Froslass, which took out the Drakloak between turns. From here I just win since my opponent didn’t have a way to prevent me from winning on the following turn with Adrena Brains.

I got rewarded for my 10 round win streak with the option of intentionally drawing my next two rounds and booking my spot directly into Top 8. I was really happy with my play to this point, it felt like I was playing some of the sharpest Pokémon of my season, and a lot of my rounds I won on the margins. I did have to wait a crazy long time to play another round since I tied back to back and had to wait for the assym games to finish before Top 8. If it was up to me I would have gone straight to playing Top 8 while I was hot. I used the break to get something to eat and watch my friend Andres play his assym match on stream. Eventually I hear my name called over the loud speakers and it’s time to play Top 8.

Fortuitously I got paired into Dragapult for my first Top Cut round which I was happy about. The matchup isn’t an auto win by any means, but I do think it is very favoured. My opponent was also sporting a one of Rare Candy in his list which I guess is a Mexico special? Regardless, I felt confident as long as I set up I should be fine. Unfortunately, game one I just can’t draw anything. I manually make two Grimmsnarls, but I can’t set up any Munkidori or Froslass and lose quite quickly. After drawing my hand to start game two I thought my tournament was over since it was completely dead. I get a crazy adrenaline rush when I top deck Arven and get to grab Secret Box to set up my board. From here I just steam roll and send us to a game three. Game three ends up being a crazy close game. I decide to go for Budew turn two instead of TM: Evolution since I had a Froslass and I want to deny him Poke Pad and Ultra Ball to get Drakloaks. My opponent whiffs Drakloak, but uses Dusclops on my Budew. On my following turn it is time for me to TM: Evolution into Morgrem and I was going to make a second Froslass so I could pressure his incoming Drakloaks, but I get crazy unlucky and draw both Froslass off of Lillie’s so I can’t make the second one since I benched the second Snorunt that turn. My opponent gets some set up on his turn and my next turn I go into Grimmsnarl and make sure to set up the board in a way which he can’t take out my Grimmsnarl. He hits into my Grimmsnarl and on my next turn I can go for TM: Devolution to leave him with only Dreepys or I can go down to 1 Prize Card to block Dusclops. If he didn’t play Rare Candy the TM: Devolution line guaranteed victory, but I was scared of Rare Candy Dragapult so I just went for the Knock Outs. My opponent wasn’t able to put together a strong enough turn and I had game on board with my Munkidori.

In Top 4 I had to play my first mirror of the tournament. The game was my first time on stream all tournament. I was quite impressed with the production they had set up, it felt very similar to a stream match I would play at a North American event. The first game I got a poor start, but I made a bad misplay on one of my turns not using a Night Stretcher for an Impidimp. I forgot I prized my third one and not getting the Impidimp set me a turn behind. I was eventually able to set up a board that was able to take out his Grimmsnarls, but he had game on board with his Munkidori. If I got a Shadow Bullet off a turn earlier I would have had a decent shot at winning. Game two I was able to get a strong set up and I had two Grimmsnarl and two Munkidori set up before my opponent got to Shadow Bullet. He also had a pretty scuffed board, having things like Tatsugiri and Shaymin taking up valuable bench spaces. This game was not really that eventful, I was just in the drivers seat the whole way and won the Grimmsnarl war. Game three I got fairly lucky since my opponent had both Morgrem in the Prize Cards! My opponent had a really hard time setting up Grimmsnarl this game, and I was able to cruise to victory. It didn’t really feel like I earned my win this round, but I’m not going to complain about being on the receiving end of good luck.

Waiting for me in finals was a Mega Absol deck piloted by Akira. This was not my preferred matchup, but I was going to give it my best shot. This was my fourth finals as a Master (Toronto Regionals 2016, Canadian Nationals 2016, Baltimore Regionals 2024) and I had yet to walk away with a victory. I had a short break before being escorted to the stage and before long we were getting ready to set up.

As I sat down the Head Judges gave us the normal run down before getting us to put on our headphones. To be honest the headphones didn’t do a great job of fully blocking out the commentators, but the Judges decided it wasn’t a big deal since neither Akira or I speak Spanish lol. Once we were actually playing and I was locked in I don’t remember hearing the commentators anyways. I had never met Akira before, so we did an introduction and chatted briefly while setting up. I noticed Akira had his nails painted with some cool Pokémon designs. It reminded me of the designs my friend Lindsay does with hers. After we shuffled up it was time to get started!

I actually got a great start in the first game, with a super strong board turn two that included a Grimmsnarl KO on two of Akira’s Munkidori. My next turn was super tricky for me to decide what to go for and in the moment I struggled to come up with the right play.

I had the option to Boss the Kangaskhan or the Latias, and get myself down to 1 or 2 Prize Cards here. I think I was worried about Akira using Penny and then going solo Mega Absol board. Instead I went for Lillie’s trying to draw a 3rd Munkidori. Had I gotten that I think my position is almost unlosable. On Akira’s following turn he hit the nuts, being able to Penny up his Kangaskhan and set up two Munkidori before taking out Grimmsnarl.

I still actually had a great chance at winning on my turn, but I played the turn fairly poorly

On Akira’s penultimate turn he used Claw of Darkness and took the Arven out of my hand to prevent me from grabbing my Nest Ball for Bloodmoon, but it was actually in my Prize Cards. On my turn I should have gone for triple Adrena Brain to Knock Out Latias and have a 2 in 3 chance of pulling the Nest Ball out of my Prize Cards. I had Boss in hand so I could have brought up Akira’s Munkidori to win. Instead I went for Iono and whiffed the Bloodmoon. I try to make myself feel better by saying I wasn’t going to pull the Nest Ball as it was in the Prize Card slot I normally pull from last, but who knows maybe I would have grabbed it. It was a pretty big oversight by me. I knew the Nest Ball was Prized, but I don’t know why it didn’t click for me to try and get it with the Knock Out. Funny enough Akira actually drew 3 cards off of my Lillie’s since he was used to Special Red Card in Japan. Neither myself or the Judges caught it, otherwise I would have also won from a DPL. It was obviously not malicious from Akira and he had game on board once I whiffed so I’m not upset about it, but it definitely added to my disappointment when I reviewed the game later. This game was right there for me, it just slipped away.

I did my best to mentally reset heading into game two, but it was just a disaster from the start. I had a dead opening hand and to make matters worse I prized both my Morgrem. It was just too much to overcome and I eventually managed to get a slight set up, but I could never come close to winning.

After I lost I congratulated Akira, walked off the stage, and just took a moment to be by myself and process the emotions. It’s tough to lose in any competition, but it especially sucks when I was so close to finally achieving my first Regional victory. Getting 2nd place at a Regionals is a great accomplishment and something the vast majority of players will never accomplish, but I just felt empty after the match, it didn’t feel like I had achieved anything. A big part of it is that I’ve made it to this stage before, but I also felt like the match was winnable. Despite me having the matchup disadvantage I could have won game one had I played things slightly differently. It is hard to make the Finals of a major. Not only do you need to play well, but you need things to go your way as well. Even if you play great Pokémon, it is unlikely you will make it through to the last match. I don’t know the next time I’ll get another chance to go for gold, and that is tough to reconcile with. I know I will get another chance eventually, but until then I just have to keep grinding and working on improving myself as a player!

I had an extra day in Mexico since I booked a Tuesday flight so I spent the Monday doing some work and solo exploring the city. I had some incredible tacos at Taqueria Los Amigos. As I was exploring the market I saw a large group of people congregating, and normally that’s a sign of high quality. I was impressed with how efficient the operation was. You would order your tacos and then some guy would just find you in the crowd and bring you your tacos once they were ready. I didn’t keep count during the trip, but I must have eaten upwards of 50 tacos across the week. It is definitely my favourite food, and I always take advantage when I’m in Mexico!

I got an early nights rest since I booked a 7 am flight home. Everything went smoothly on my return trip and I had a month break until it was time for my next event!

Learnings: I’m right there. I’ll win soon :)

Event 11: Utrecht, Netherlands 9-2-3 61st

Play: 7, Location: 7.5, Cost: $1300, Book: Pachinko (5/5)

**Pretty Sure This is Based On a Pikachu Card**

Originally, I wanted to compete at Prague Regionals. I’ve been there before and loved the city, but more importantly it was the first post rotation event. I always find those events to be the most interesting. The meta is normally a mess, and nobody has quite figured out what the best decks are. I find there are real opportunities to excel in these types of tournaments. Unfortunately for me, I whiffed on registration all three times it was open. For that reason I decided to go to Utrecht instead, despite it being a bit more expensive. I ended up turning it into a week long trip as well since my mom ended up coming as a Mothers Day present! One of her best friends from university actually lives in Amsterdam so we stayed with her and her family during the week. She took us around the city and to all of the famous tourist spots such as the Van Gogh museum! A big thanks to Hanneke and Robin for hosting us, it definitely made our stay much more enjoyable!

Leading up to Utrecht I was very unsure about what I wanted to play. I had been really enjoying playing Festival Lead, and would have played that had I gotten in to Prague a few weeks prior. I was still considering it since it is extremely good into anything that isn’t Dragapult, and as long as it isn’t up against Pultnoir I think you actually have a reasonable shot. When LA Regionals resulted in Pultnoir having a mass resurgence and all the Alakazam decks playing Handheld Fan I knew that Utrecht was not the tournament for Festival Lead unfortunately.

My general philosophy is that if you consider yourself a strong player you should just play the best deck. Following this logic I should just lock in Dragapult, but I still wanted to explore some other decks. While I felt like I’d be pretty favoured into most players if I was on Dragapult, I did worry that any mirrors against other good players would be fairly luck based. While there is some nuance in the mirror match, it does feel like a lot of it comes down to who gets a better set up and/or sets up better under Itchy Pollen.

By the time I met up with my friends in Utrecht I had settled on the fact that I was going to play Dragapult, I just needed to lock in on a version. I was leaning towards Dusknoir since I feel like it handles random decks the best. I do think Pultnoir has a slightly weaker mirror match, but it’s not like you are at a significant disadvantage. I do think the European player base enjoys playing the “less serious” decks a bit more than the North American player base so playing the Dusknoir felt correct.

When it came to the list I put my trust into one of Dragapults most loyal soldiers, Nick Germain. I have a Dragapult channel on my Discord server, and everyone is always going to Nick for advice in there. Nick has had a fairly strong season with Pultnoir so I just took one of his lists and changed a card or two to get to the one I ended up playing.

**My First Time Playing Dragapult to a Major!**

It’s funny, I’m not exaggerating when I say I’ve probably played Dragapult over 1000 times before this tournament, but this would be my first time bringing it to a major. I’ve coached so many students on the deck and also played it against people so they could practice against it. Almost all of those games have been played online, so it did feel a bit weird doing the Recon Directives in person. One thing I want to do more of is paper testing, right now I’d say I play 90% of my games on a computer. I do think some of my sequencing misplays during the event were due to the fact that I’m less used to playing with the physical cards.

I didn’t get the best sleep the night before the event, but I was able to wake up just before 7. I took a shower, did my skin care routine, and my hair before grabbing a quick bite to eat. Originally my friends and I were going to take an Uber/Bolt to the venue, but the drivers kept cancelling on us. Luckily we were able to catch the bus and get to the venue 10 minutes before round one started.

My pairings on day one were some of the strangest I had all season. I hit 2 Starmies, 2 Honchkrows, a Festival Lead, one Dragapult, and a Decidueye Vivillion (with Dangerous Laser!) in my first 7 rounds. I won five rounds and tied against one of the Starmies and one of the Honchkrows. Against the Starmie I definitely should have scooped game two earlier. I had my only Drakloak go down around the 18 minute mark, but I tried to play out a Munkidori Confusion line. To my credit I actually got the game to come down to a coin flip, but I should have just started game 3 with ample time on the clock.

In my tie against Honchkrow I had a pretty interesting board where I could clear my opponent’s board of Murkrow or Porygon. My Dragapult was damaged so he didn’t need anything crazy to win. My opponent only had 1 Ignition Energy left so I went for the board clear on Murkrow, but 2 of his 3 cards ended up being the Energy and Porygon 2 lol. I think I made the correct choice, but it sucks when it backfires.

My matchup against the Vivillion deck was actually very scary. My opponent played Arboliva in addition to the other Pokémon and I didn’t have Shaymin in my deck. I drew extremely well this round, but my opponent had an opportunity to completely deny me Drakloaks in game two, but decided to put 120 damage on my Fezandipiti with an Energy instead.

My last two rounds I won and tied against two Dragapult decks to end the day 6-0-3. It was honestly a solid record, but I felt like I played fairly mediocre on the day. A lot of my wins were just because my opponents were making mistakes, but I guess that is part of doing well at a tournament.

I suffered my first loss of the tournament at the beginning of day two against a Slop Box. I had some interesting decisions to make towards the end of game 3. On my second to last turn I had Unfair Stamp and Watchtower, but my opponent had a Clefairy with an Energy on the bench. I had just evolved to Dusclops so I couldn’t take it out on the bench. I had to decide if I wanted to bench Meowth for Boss before playing Unfair Stamp or just risk it. I decided to put the Meowth down and my opponent drew Boss off of the Stamp. On my next turn I could have used Dusknoir to Knock Out Kangaskhan, but I held off since my opponent didn’t bump my Watchtower and I was scared of my Munkidori getting Sobbed. Of course my opponent drew Area Zero for turn and then used Run Errend to put together a Clefairy for Knock Out. Looking back I should have just popped and taken out the Kangaskhan. My opponent had just drawn 2 Prize Cards and was probably going to get an out to something like a Fezandipiti. With this loss I could no longer make Top 8, but if I won out I would make Top 16.

I rallied to win my next 3 matches against a Festival Lead, Dragapult, and Greninja Dusknoir which put me in position to play a win and in for Top 16. I was not happy when I saw my opponent flip over a Cynthia’s Gible since Garchomp is up there as one of Dragapults worst matchups. I was playing against a younger player and he was quite nervous which was definitely an advantage for me.

The first game I won quite easily since my opponent struggled to set up, but the second game I prized two Dreepy and that made it to difficult to win. The third game I opened with the worst hand of the tournament. Amazingly I was able to Boss stall for a few turns until I drew Lillie’s. My opponent was chaining Bosses on my Drakloaks and I had the chance to Unfair Stamp, but I didn’t since it seemed like my opponent had a dead hand. When I took a Knock Out he actually used Unfair Stamp on me. Since most of my Drakloaks were gone I couldn’t draw out of it and eventually lost. That was one of those tough situations where it felt wrong to play my Unfair Stamp since my opponent was bricking, but it probably made sense to since my opponent had seen so many cards. I actually don’t think I saw his Ace Spec either up until that point so I wasn’t factoring for Unfair Stamp. I think my opponent mentioned to me it was only his 3rd ever tournament and he was elated after he won so I was really happy for him. Hopefully this is the first great result of many for him!

I finished 61st which was fairly decent for my first tournament playing Dragapult, but it sucks to miss out on the cash. Overall I don’t think I played amazing, but the quality of play from my opponents was fairly weak this tournament. Top 64 felt like a fair placement.

After leaving Utrecht I spent a couple more days in Amsterdam before heading home to Toronto and getting ready for NAIC!

Learnings: Play more in person Pokémon for practice, especially when switching to a new deck!

Tournament 12: New Orleans, USA 4-3-1 964th

Play: 8.5, Location: 5, Cost: $1400, Book: Frankenstein (3.5/5)

NAIC always seems to sneak up on me. Like I said at the beginning of this article, the season feels like it flew by. It does genuinely feel like time moves faster as you get older. The lead up to NAIC is always the time of year where I am the busiest with work. Almost all of my students attend the event so I get fairly booked in the weeks preceding the tournament. This year I also hosted my inaugural NAIC Jrs/Srs Camp, which was a lot of fun! I’ve actually done quite poorly at NAIC the past few seasons and part of me wonders if it is because I don’t prioritize my own preparation as much. I do think I’ve had some unfortunate luck at the event, but I also don’t think I’ve made an amazing deck choice at any of the events either. It’s definitely something for me to reflect on as an area of improvement which I’ll explore more in a bit.

Leading up to the tournament I couldn’t really find a deck that felt like a super amazing play for me. For that reason I was just defaulting to Dragapult. I ended up going with the Hammer version since it has the best mirror match. I expected most of the top players in the room to be on some form of Dragapult so I wanted to have a good to even matchup into them. I don’t love playing a flipping card, but to do well at an IC you need some things to go your way. I didn’t play Dudunsparce, favouring the Watchtowers in the deck instead. I like the coverage the card gives you into a lot of random decks such as Alakazam and Slop Box variants. Overall, I was fairly happy with the list I used.

My tournament actually started quite well. I was 4-0-1 through the first five rounds. I tied against a Lucario Dudunsparce deck with Hero’s Cape. The matchup was definitely hard, the one game I won was due to an Unfair Stamp just cheesing a game. The second game I actually Prized Unfair Stamp and Red Card so I couldn’t disrupt until I hit one off of my prizes. The third game my opponent kept hitting Boss on my Drakloaks. He took out three in a row before I had the opportunity to make a Dragapult. I was basically just trying to get to a position where I could Unfair Stamp or Red Card and try and win due to him bricking. When time was called my opponent was at 3 Prize Cards and I had a single Prize board so we tied. Had we had a few more minutes it would have just come down to if he drew out of disruption. I definitely had an interesting decision if I should have scooped game two once I realized my disruption was Prized. I’m normally less for scooping early when you’re in an unfavoured matchup, but a tie is just so punishing at an event with close to 4000 players. Even if I was a slight underdog in that third game, it’s probably better to just try and win it with more time.

After my 4-0-1 start the wheels fell off. My 6th round I was definitely not pleased with how things played out. I hit a Dragapult Hammer mirror, and I’m not exaggerating when I say in game 1 my opponent went 4/4 on Hammers and I went 0/4. Bad variance happens, but the real reason I wasn’t happy was that I felt my opponent was clearly trying to manipulate his die rolls. Whenever he went to roll he would do what I can best describe as a “Beyblade Roll”. He would put the die between his palms and roll it horizontally so the number on top would never change. I actually gave him the benefit of the doubt on his first couple of rolls and didn’t make him re-roll, but told him I wanted him to roll normally for subsequent flips. His third flip he changed how he rolled, but the die didn’t rotate at all so I finally told him he needed to re-roll. I can’t remember the last time I called a Judge over for a die roll, but this definitely felt like a situation where it was warranted. We called over a floor judge who didn’t really understand what was going on so we got the Head Judge. It was a classic he said she said situation so I don’t fault the Judge for ultimately letting the original die roll stand, but it was quite frustrating to see my opponent just start blatantly lying and changing up his story from what he told the floor judge (who once again was just not useful). The resolution my opponent and I agreed on was to have a Judge watch all flips from then on, which I was happy with and had no complaints about any of the die rolls the rest of the match. Afterwards my opponent claimed he had never had anyone call out his methodology of rolling, but I actually got a DM from one of his earlier opponents telling me that he also took issue with this particular players die rolling. Once I got that message I was even more confident that my opponent was acting in bad faith. It is a bit disappointing that the Judges obviously didn’t record an earlier interaction and take that into account. Looking back I should have gotten a Judge involved from the very first flip, but I normally like giving my opponents the benefit of the doubt. I genuinely believe most people aren’t malicious when they make a mistake, but it is still best to call a Judge when there is any doubt. I know this paragraph probably comes off as a bit salty, but my intent is to highlight a situation that probably happens more often than one would think and to give you an example of how best to handle it if it ever happens to you!

Despite the large Judge call there was actually no animosity the rest of the match. I was frustrated, but I didn’t want my play to suffer. We played out the end of the first game where I ran out of Energy and then the second game I just drew an unplayable hand off of my first Lillie’s and slowly lost from there.

Round 7 I lost a super close match, but I really enjoyed getting the chance to play against David Cohen, the 2011 World Champion. Him and I had a great conversation throughout the set and our third game was super close. On my last turn I needed a Crushing Hammer heads to take the Energy off of his benched Drakloak so he would need to Crispin on his following turn. I flipped tails so he was able to attach, evolve, and Boss my Meowth for game. After the match he explained he was getting back into Pokémon and that he actually knew a lot of my west coast friends which was cool.

My last round I hit an Alakazam deck, which my build was prepared for. I have the Judge and 2 Watch Tower. The first game I just couldn’t get going and whiffed disruption cards on the key turns. The second game I had a dead hand, but eventually got a turn where I could disrupt and Watch Tower. It ended up being enough. The third game was shaping up to be super interesting. We got to a spot where I was using Budew and my opponent didn’t want to take a Knock Out and activate a disruption card. I had learned my opponent was playing 2 Eri so I kept sending my Red Card to the bottom of the deck with Recon Directive. When time got called we were kind of in a stalemate since I didn’t want to evolve my Drakloaks and he didn’t want to take a Knock Out. We needed a resolution so what I ended up doing was attack with a Dragapult and then on my next turn I was going to Red Card and he would be turn 3. If he drew out of the Red Card he would be the winner, otherwise I would win. I didn’t end up even drawing my Red Card so he won the match, but I think the game would have been extremely interesting had it played out naturally. My opponent was super chill this round and I really enjoyed our match despite me being on the losing end!

With that I finished 4-3-1, which was disappointing, but I feel like I played fairly well overall. I wasn’t thrilled with my deck choice, but I don’t really think there was anything much better for the event.

I spent the Saturday doing a Diamond and Pearl format tournament which was a lot of fun. Big shout out to Nolan for lending me a Blaziken/Luxray Lv. X deck. I actually ended up taking second, succumbing to a Gardevoir/Gallade deck in the finals. The tournament took up most of my Saturday, but it was honestly a blast. I love playing retro formats, and the Diamond and Pearl era is up there as one of the best.

I spent Saturday evening with friends. I went to a bar where I watched the Knicks close out the NBA Finals. It was funny, the guy sitting next to us at the bar was going crazy and after talking to him he claimed to be the best friend of OG Anunoby’s cousin! I have no idea if he was telling the truth, but the guy definitely added to my enjoyment of watching the game! After the bar we headed to Bourbon Street. Our first stop was at this vampire themed tarot bar. You had to go through a jazz bar and then this guy who was dressed like a witch doctor lead us through a secret entrance. The vibes were definitely cool. Afterwards we headed to the section of Bourbon Street where all the Pokémon players had congregated. I’m not a big drinker, but I got one of those slushie drinks that I nursed for the night. It was really nice running into so many people I knew and only get to see a few times a year. I ended up staying out quite late since I didn’t have any set plans on the Sunday.

The Sunday I just spent hanging out with friends and doing some side events with my students. I had an insanely early flight on Monday so I pulled an all nighter with some other friends headed to the airport early as well. I had a really long layover in Philadelphia, but my friend Mike picked me up from the airport and we spent the day together getting Philly Cheesesteaks and watching the World Cup at a bar. The bar actually had a partnership with the sandwich shop across the street where you could order a cheese steak and they would bring it over which was cool. We also ended up making friends with this lady sitting next to us and the 3 of us had some interesting conversations. Afterwards Mike drove me back to the airport and I headed back home.

Learnings: Prioritize my own practice a bit more and/or work on finding an innovative deck

Final Stats

Record: 90-29-21 (+3 IDs)

Overall I think my season record was ok. I went 8/12 on converting to day 2 and had a fairly normal tie percentage (15%). I do think something that kept coming up as I was reflecting on the season was how many ties I was having. A goal for myself is to get my tie rate below 10%, and be more aggressive with my scooping. I definitely feel like I left some tournament EV on the table by not scooping game 2s quickly enough, especially at Lille. I also only won two matches all season as a 1-0, maybe I need to look for more situations where that’s possible. I personally just find it hard to win a match that way unless my opponent is playing at a ridiculously slow pace.

If you count ties as 1/3 of a win then my win percentage for the season was 69.24%, which I think is fairly respectable. It’s more or less inline with my career win rate (68.9%). My phase 2 record was 24-12-7 (+3 IDs) for a win percentage of 61.19%, which again is respectable given that phase 2 generally features tougher opponents. I still think there is room for improvement here, especially on day 2.

Events: 8 Regionals, 3 ICs, 1 SPE

I attended 12 events this season. One in Canada, one in the US, three in Mexico, two in South America, and four in Europe. This felt like a fairly manageable amount to attend. The travel was definitely more intensive since the flights I took were much longer compared to heading south of the border. I’m still undecided if I’ll continue doing mainly international events again next season, but it was something I really enjoyed this year. Europe is quite expensive to fly to and the Canadian Dollar is very weak against the Euro so maybe I’ll look to replace some of those trips with more South American Regionals. I’ve always wanted to visit Chile, so Santiago Regionals is on my radar for next season. This season the timing just wasn’t great for me the weekend they held it. I’d also love to compete at a tournament in Asia one day, but that is a much more serious trip. I’ve seen a lot of players heading to China, so maybe that is something to look into for the future! Unless Pokémon adds some new international cities to the TPCI circuit there isn’t really a place I’m dying to travel to.

Cost: ~$13,250 (Probably a Bit More)

I basically just did a control f on my Google Sheet containing my expenses to get the costs of each event. If I was super diligent looking at everything I probably spent closer to $16,000. I also didn’t include registration fees which would push costs up by another $1,300ish. I feel like that is a fairly reasonable amount to spend for 12 events and how much international travel I did. My travel expenses are also tax deductible as business expenses for the most part so that also helps with affordability.

I made $12,000 USD ($17,000 CAD) from prize money so I covered my travel expenses with my play this season. I’ve been really fortunate that the past 4 seasons I’ve finished in the black when it comes to cost VS money won, but I also have to acknowledge that I have the privilege of enough free time to attend so many events.

Decks Played:

Grimmsnarl: 4 Events, 39-8-9 (+3 IDs), 785 (605) Championship Points

Gholdengo: 4 Events, 26-11-4, 420 (340) Championship Points

Gardevoir Jellicent: 2 Events, 12-5-4, 160 (120) Championship Points

Dragapult: 2 Events, 13-5-4, 160 (0) Championship Points

Note: numbers in brackets means how many Championship Points I kept due to Best Finish Limits.

One takeaway from the season is I had my most diverse season in terms of deck selection. The past 3 seasons I’ve played one archetype for over half of my events, but this year I didn’t play one deck for more than a third of my events. One of my goals heading into the season was to try and play more decks instead of just sticking to one the whole format. I think there is objectively always a best play for a tournament and being flexible with deck selection can be important for trying to win. However if you are a newer player or just trying to improve I actually recommend the opposite and suggest just playing the tier 1 or 2 deck you are most comfortable with. Looking at my season maybe I should have actually stuck to that advice since Grimmsnarl outperformed all my other decks by a significant amount. I definitely think I could have played the deck more during the initial Mega Evolution format, but like I identified earlier, I didn’t have the right list. I think if I spent more time testing the deck during the year I could have got there, but I let my pre conceived notions of a matchup (Gholdengo) get in the way.

One area I still think I struggle with is finding a deck after rotation. It has felt like the past couple of seasons I really struggled to find a deck I vibed with. This season Grimmsnarl got fairly nerfed losing Arven and the Technical Machines so I had to adjust for the last couple of events I played. I stuck to my philosophy of just playing the best deck in Dragapult, but I don’t love just playing a deck that is upwards of 40% of the meta. I think this season it has been a particularly rough metagame, but I do think this is an area for me to focus on next season. I want to try and go to the first post rotation event and play something unique next season if possible!

Improving as a Player

I feel like I’m in one of the hardest spots to be as a player. I’m currently at what I’d consider to be a fairly elite level, and do consider myself one of the top players in the game, but there is still a sizeable gap between myself and the very top players such as Hedrick, Tord, Chao, etc... To make a sports analogy, I’m an all-star (Scottie Barnes) trying to make the jump to superstar (Kawhi) which is definitely the hardest progression to make. The good news for me is that I can still identify tons of areas to improve as a player if I want to take that next step.

The two areas for the biggest improvement in my opinion are tournament preparation and deck innovation. I play an insane amount of Pokemon on a weekly basis, like easily upwards of 30 to 40 hours, but most of that comes from coaching. What I think coaching prepares me really well for is understanding every single deck in the meta and how to play matchups extremely proficiently. I feel like one of my biggest strengths is I understand the lines for every deck at a high level, but coaching isn’t the same as me doing my own practice games. I do learn a lot and encounter tons of really interesting board states, but I’m very focused on teaching in those moments and not my own play (as I should be!). Sometimes I find it a bit hard to motivate myself to play even more games in my free time since I play so much for my work. It doesn’t help that Live is a very inefficient and slow program so it isn’t enticing to try and grind to a high rank in Arceus tier. Normally what I do to test is just play games or scenarios against myself in simulators like TCG Masters or PTCG Sim. The other way I test games is at League Cups. I don’t play them super frequently, but whenever I go to one I try out whatever deck I’m currently interested in learning better or if I have some list questions I’m trying to figure out I will be more experimental. I also watch a lot of stream games, and I find that super helpful for learning/training my ability to work through complex situations. I love watching games from really strong players like Henry Chao, Tord, or Piper and trying to see if I make the same plays they would. I do this a lot when I’m trying to learn a new deck that I am less familiar with.

Adding on to how I practice, I don’t test with others that often. I talk a lot of strategy with my peers, which I find immensely useful, but we don’t often sit down and play games. I think I need to start doing more high level practice with other strong players to not only further my gameplay skills, but keep them sharp. Whenever I play with a smart player we generate so much thoughtful discussion over board states, opening hands, and lines to take. I’m definitely going to make it a goal to try and do as much in person practice with others this summer in preparation for Worlds!

The other topic of improvement I mentioned is deck innovation, which I think goes hand in hand with tournament prep. If you look at the deck lists I played this season I would say they were all fairly standard, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. A lot of tournaments are won by “boring” decks, but we see innovation get rewarded constantly. Some examples from this season would be Scream Tail Gardevoir, Liam’s Zoroark, Mega Absol, Dawn Zard, Dragapult Dudunsparce, and Dragapult Hammers to name a few. Heading in to a tournament you are at such an advantage if you can innovate and be one step ahead of the playerbase. I do think I’m quite good at refining deck lists and adding my own little tweaks, but I don’t often play something super fresh. It is hard to constantly do this since you need to spend hours testing ideas to finally have one work, and the thing I am limited by the most is time. I don’t think I need to be constantly looking to innovate, but I want to make it a point to try and work in some more innovative decks next season. I play so many events that I think it is fine to take some risks!

I do actually have examples of when I’ve played innovative decks and it has paid off. For 2023 Worlds I spent the summer working on “Canadian Chien-Pao”, which I took to Worlds and finished in the Top 32. After that event the way I built the archetype became the standard and the deck had lots of success. The other time is when I played Gardevoir ex without Battle VIP Pass to LAIC 2024 and finished Top 4. I can’t take credit for this build since I got it from a friend, but that builds on the point about needing to work with others more!

Looking Ahead to Worlds and Beyond

As I finish reflecting on the season that just concluded there is still one event left, and it is the biggest one of all, Worlds. It’s the dream of myself and every player competing at it to walk away from it holding the Pikachu trophy and earning the title of World Champion. This year will mark my 10th World Championships, and my 8th as a Master. Overall I’d say I have done decently well at the event over the years, I have made Top 32 four out of my seven times competing in Masters, but it is definitely frustrating how many times I’ve finished on the precipice of Top Cut. It was heartbreaking for me to tie my win and in last year after winning the first game, I was so close to giving myself a chance to compete for it all. Worlds is such a demanding tournament. It requires impeccable deck selection and building, near perfect play, and also a lot of luck. Last year it felt like I was playing well, but I was definitely getting lucky. It stung that I couldn’t convert it to a Top 8.

Worlds is the one tournament I really feel the nerves at, and every year when I walk to my table for round 1 my heart is beating out of my chest. Unlike a Regionals or even an IC, you only get one try at Worlds each season. If you have a bad event you have to wait a whole year to try again. I truly feel the stakes behind every single play and action that I take. It feels like each card I draw has so much weight behind it. I actually do notice that I generally seem to be more locked in whenever I play Worlds, I do think the event brings out the best in me. The feeling of competing at the event is truly intoxicating, and getting to play games with such high stakes is something I live for. The adrenaline rush from winning a game that furthers the pursuit of becoming the World Champion is unmatched, and I yearn for the day I hopefully get the chance to go on a truly deep run!

I’m really looking forward to heading to San Francisco and competing next month. Worlds is always the highlight of my year. Besides the competition it’s just so amazing to see how large the event has become. Last time I was in San Francisco for Worlds we were competing in the basement of a hotel. The fact that the finals are being held in an NBA Arena is incredible, and shows how much the game has truly grown since I started playing 15 years ago. I remember sitting in the arena last year watching the finals, and the energy in that place was off the charts. Hopefully this year I get to experience the energy from the stage!

This ended up being a behemoth of an article, but I really enjoyed writing it. I’m a very nostalgic person, and it was great not only looking back on the year that I’ve had competing, but also the adventures I shared with friends. I’m so incredibly lucky that I get to have so many amazing experiences because of a card game, and I still find it hard to believe I’ve turned this into a real career. Hopefully you enjoyed reading about my journey this season and you learned a thing or two! A big thanks to everyone who has supported me and cheers me on, it truly does mean the world to me!

Thanks for reading!

-Ciaran

2025-26 Season Review

Event 1: Monterrey, Mexico 8-3-2 64th

Play: 7/10, Location: 8.5/10, Cost: $800, Book: Golden Son (3.5/5)

Event 2: Lille, France 7-1-5 79th

Play: 8.5/10, Location: 6.5/10, Cost: $850, Book: Well of Ascension (3.5/5)

Tunisia

Event 3: Gdansk, Poland 4-2-2 379th

Play: 7, Location: 7.5, Cost: $1100, Book: Hero of Ages (4.5/5)

Event 4: Buenos Aires, Argentina 7-3-1 22nd

Play: 8.5, Location: 9.5, Cost: $1350, Book: Morning Star (4/5)

Event 5: LAIC, Brazil 9-2-3 41st

Play: 8, Location: 9, Cost: $1500, Book: Strength of the Few (3/5)

Event 6: Stuttgart, Germany 5-3 460th

Play: 8, Location: 5, Cost: $1400, Book: Strength of the Few (3/5)

Event 7: Toronto, Canada 5-3 431st

Play: 9, Location: 10/10, Cost: $150, Book: Blood Over Bright Haven (4/5)

Event 8: Merida, Mexico 10-1-4 8th

Play: 9, Location: 9, Cost: $900, Book: Jade War (4/5)

Event 9: EUIC London, England 9-4-1 190th

Play: 7.5, Location: 7, Cost: $1100, Book: Katabasis (3/5)

Milan, Italy

Event 10: Querétaro, Mexico 13-2-2 2nd

Play: 9, Location: 9, Cost: $1300, Book: Jade Legacy (5/5)

Event 11: Utrecht, Netherlands 9-2-3 61st

Play: 7, Location: 7.5, Cost: $1300, Book: Pachinko (5/5)

Tournament 12: New Orleans, USA 4-3-1 964th

Play: 8.5, Location: 5, Cost: $1400, Book: Frankenstein (3.5/5)

Final Stats

Record: 90-29-21 (+3 IDs)

Events: 8 Regionals, 3 ICs, 1 SPE

Cost: ~$13,250 (Probably a Bit More)

Decks Played:

Improving as a Player

Looking Ahead to Worlds and Beyond

Ciaran TCG

Location

Contact

2025-26 Season Review

Event 1: Monterrey, Mexico 8-3-2 64th

Play: 7/10, Location: 8.5/10, Cost: $800, Book: Golden Son (3.5/5)

Event 2: Lille, France 7-1-5 79th

Play: 8.5/10, Location: 6.5/10, Cost: $850, Book: Well of Ascension (3.5/5)

Tunisia

Event 3: Gdansk, Poland 4-2-2 379th

Play: 7, Location: 7.5, Cost: $1100, Book: Hero of Ages (4.5/5)

Event 4: Buenos Aires, Argentina 7-3-1 22nd

Play: 8.5, Location: 9.5, Cost: $1350, Book: Morning Star (4/5)

Event 5: LAIC, Brazil 9-2-3 41st

Play: 8, Location: 9, Cost: $1500, Book: Strength of the Few (3/5)

Event 6: Stuttgart, Germany 5-3 460th

Play: 8, Location: 5, Cost: $1400, Book: Strength of the Few (3/5)

Event 7: Toronto, Canada 5-3 431st

Play: 9, Location: 10/10, Cost: $150, Book: Blood Over Bright Haven (4/5)

Event 8: Merida, Mexico 10-1-4 8th

Play: 9, Location: 9, Cost: $900, Book: Jade War (4/5)

Event 9: EUIC London, England 9-4-1 190th

Play: 7.5, Location: 7, Cost: $1100, Book: Katabasis (3/5)

Milan, Italy

Event 10: Querétaro, Mexico 13-2-2 2nd

Play: 9, Location: 9, Cost: $1300, Book: Jade Legacy (5/5)

Event 11: Utrecht, Netherlands 9-2-3 61st

Play: 7, Location: 7.5, Cost: $1300, Book: Pachinko (5/5)

Tournament 12: New Orleans, USA 4-3-1 964th

Play: 8.5, Location: 5, Cost: $1400, Book: Frankenstein (3.5/5)

Final Stats

Record: 90-29-21 (+3 IDs)

Events: 8 Regionals, 3 ICs, 1 SPE

Cost: ~$13,250 (Probably a Bit More)

Decks Played:

Improving as a Player

Looking Ahead to Worlds and Beyond

Merida Regionals Top 8 Report

Ciaran TCG

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