After a long year with many life changes I’m back. I’ll be completely honest when I say that I forgot that I even had a blog until I received an email about it and went back through and read everything I had written. Besides my grammar being atrocious I was able to relive the feelings I had at various points in my career and that was invaluable to me. So I decided to take the time I had before I leave for another IC to recap 2019. I left everyone at a cliffhanger with my season, a Top 16 berth held after a month of good performances but did I end up claiming it? Did I bring my parents to Worlds in DC? Did I graduate college and become a member of the working world? The answer to all of these are yes, but the journey is what I like to talk about and to the best of my memory we can embark on it together.
St. Louis Regionals
After returning from Oceania I was riding high on my recent accomplishment but the taste of bitter defeat on camera left me motivated and wanting more than ever. This regionals was not one where I would be doing that or putting any effort into practicing. I wanted to avoid burning out as I had in times past and I had an evening flight, well evening is an understatement. I was to land at 1 AM in St. Louis and then head over to the venue which was another 30 minutes or so. Luckily for me I had Jose Marrero and Adam Dorricott (Dozzalon) on my flight so I wasn’t completely alone at witching hours. Adam had rented a car so we picked it up and head over to the venue to get some rest. I slept on the flight so I opted to message the same chat from Oceania Internationals saying that I would wake up and play whoever was doing the best’s deck at the European event that was going on the same day. Fabien had messaged me before I went to bed that he was playing Tapu Koko/Passimian and that I should be prepared to play it. I was terrified but excited at the prospect of playing a “meme deck” for an event just to have fun and reset my mental state. I woke up to find Pedro was 5-0 with Jolteon GX/Zapdos and Fabien was 4-0-1 because he met a Metagross and faced an unfortunate tie. I thanked my lucky stars and sleeved up the 60 Card List that Pedro sent me, I had already bought Jolteon GXs ahead of time, along with the other Eeveelution GXs, just in case they would be useful in Oceania so it worked out in my favor. The deck functioned similar to the Zapdos/Jirachi deck that Isaiah Williams had taken down Oceania with the week before, but had the Jolteon GX for the mirror. The deck had a terrible ZoroRoc/Muk matchup and I was fully aware of that heading into the tournament. I was simply a man of my word and I trusted what Pedro told me to play, or Fabien… even if it was Passimian.
Round 2 I was met with a situation that I hadn’t encountered at the table in almost my whole career. A player trying to cheat against me with sleight of hand. He was a younger player who had just aged up and was in a good position to win the 2nd game of the match, I had taken Game 1, but needed a Beast Energy to win the game on that particular turn against me. My opponent used Lillie to get to a 6 card hand and then proceeded to use a search card like Nest Ball, I was watching closely as his movements became shiftier and all of a sudden I noticed a card on top of his hand in a different direction. I stopped him from searching, explained that he now has 6 cards again in his hand because the 6th card on top was a Beast Energy and I flipped it over, and I was right. I honestly don’t know what I would have done if I was wrong because that would have been awkward. After a judge call where he admitted to it, I pleaded that he not be disqualified because he’s just a kid and I could already see his mother staring me down, or rather him. I was told to leave the table with the match-slip and when the next round’s pairings went up I realized that he had been disqualified from the event. It hurt to do what I think was the right thing in that instance but I felt terrible for the outcome.
Day 1 proceeded to find me at 6-2 with a single round left. Being someone who wanted to win the tournament and realizing that Day 2 would have over a 100 Players participating, I wanted to find an edge so I was mentally willing to play my last round out unless my opponent was playing ZoroRoc paired with the unsavory Muk. I hit a Virginia local and my good friend Dean Nezam texted me that it was his first time making Day 2 so I should spare him. Little did I know that he was actually playing ZoroRoc so I was the one who was spared when he offered the ID and I took it. That night I went out to Applebee’s to enjoy some late night boneless wings and was able to rest easy knowing I had secured myself another Day 2. Not having any expectations and surpassing them is a wonderful feeling, somewhat blissful even. The next morning I was ready to tackle whatever came my way and I had heard about Riley and companies interesting Hoopa/Wailord/Vileplume stall deck that was sweeping through the competition. My deck fortunately was able to hold its own in the matchup but there was another rogue deck that had surfaced, one that I wasn’t able to deal with. Peter Kica brought Zygarde GX/Lucario GX/Buzzwole GX which was just a nightmare to even think about for my deck. I made two uncharacteristic gameplay errors throughout the first 4 rounds of the day, a laughing point for the judges who knew me and a cause for concern for those who didn’t. I had used Guzma and then played out my entire turn finishing with a Volkner….. in two separate rounds. Luckily for me the prize loss didn’t affect the nature of the game as I simply was able to play the Volkner in the following turn and win the game anyways but I could tell I was off my usual game due to fatigue. Round 5 of the day had me on another win and in situation. A chance at redemption for myself after falling short just a week before, granted the stakes aren’t the same but for the sake of my own personal validation I needed the win. After Games 1 and 3 were lost to Let Loose and not opening a Jirachi to even play the game I was frustrated nonetheless. I shrugged it off and found myself with another a shot to make it, I hit what I think was the worst matchup for myself outside of Peter’s Fighting concoction, ZoroRoc/Muk with 2 Grimer. My opponent had prepared with such angst towards Zapdos/Jirachi and it would pay off here. I was lead to the dreaded Stream Area knowing my fate and after taking it to Game 3 but losing in a matter of minutes I had accepted my fate. This loss didn’t sting nearly as bad as the one a week before but losing out with two opportunities left me with a compounding mental block that I was fated to lose win and in games on stream.
I headed back to college after that to wrap up my last couple of things before I headed home for Spring Break. I know I skipped a weekend of cups to simply relax and catch up on some Netflix because I had been through this grind once and was better equipped to deal with it moving forwards. In my mind I was in a good spot for the end of the year Top 16 finish and could afford to relax and focus on my academia.
Toronto Regionals
Toronto Regionals meant Spring Break for me, a week where I could be as lazy as I wanted for once. I managed to wrap up all my tasks ahead of schedule and I found myself with no exams directly after break for once. This meant a cool one way flight up to Toronto Thursday night after classes for another try at Expanded. I brought with me a Vespiquen deck and a PikaRom deck and that was it. Thursday night I got in at the wee hours and stayed with the production crew for the night, they arose early and headed to the venue to set up for their long weekend ahead of them while I slept on the couch. My companions from the Virginia area came up to pick me up as I had secured a ride back home with them, much to my father’s chagrin. We had ample time before we could check into our Airbnb so we headed to a Mall nearby to test games and just kill time until we could get home and take some much needed naps. I found my first Bulk Barn on this trip and was intrigued at the prospect of having nearly everything in bulk out in the open, I grabbed myself a bag of Gummy Bears and after some Bubble Tea with the gang we headed to the Airbnb. It was a nice sized house that could have fit well over the 8 guests we had listed on our reservation but we honored the rules and just filled in quietly. Once we had situated ourselves and freshened up, the games resumed. Stephane Ivanoff had just showed up with his Hitmonchan/Wobb deck that Jon Eng had instantly taken a liking to. Some talk of Trev Break came up at the table but was quickly dismissed because of how badly it was losing to PikaRom. I was messaging Jose during the day and he was chatting with me about a Turbo Rayquaza deck that he had concocted, trying to change my mind from playing Vespiquen again. After the games had finished I proposed that we head to get some Korean Barbecue at a specific location from last year. The problem was that it was a 30 minute Uber away. This year’s location for the event was far away from the downtown part of the city where we were located the year before, making it difficult to go multiple times like the year prior. I gathered the troops and we headed over there to eat and we all chowed down and had a good time. We came back and were all in a food induced coma of sorts. I retired early, I might have even been the first to call it a night as I was exhausted and settled on Vespiquen as my deck of choice. I was one of the first ones awake as well and was greeted by Justin Bokhari who informed me that a handful of players in our Airbnb and the event were going to be playing Trev Break and taking the loss to PikaRom if they were to encounter it. I knew that was a bad matchup but I figured I could get far enough without seeing 3 to knock me out of the tournament. Boy was I wrong. I started strong at 4-0-1, tying Caleb Gedemer playing Night March in a close series that I would have won if I had another few minutes but things quickly fell apart as I was uppaired into my first Trev Break of the day. Taking it to a Game 3 was more than I could have asked for and I almost took it home but a crippling N to 1 where I needed a DCE to end the game left my hand dead and my board wiped 2 turns later. The next two rounds found me face to face with two more Trevenant decks that I didn’t draw so well against and I found myself signing a Drop Slip at 4-3-1.
It felt frustrating to hit 3 terrible matchups, but I found out that out of the 16 Trevenant in the room, 15 of them made it to the 2nd Day. So even if I had clawed my way to the 2nd day it would have been a cruel reminder of what the matchup is like. I slept in and began to enjoy my Spring Break now that I was eliminated, I headed over to the venue at my leisure and cheered on the rest of my friends who were still competing. Will Jenkins secured his first Top 4 but it was a bittersweet one as he had made a game losing mistake under the pressure and the atmosphere in the car was a bit somber. The drive was smooth and I made it home in one piece. I hadn’t decided on whether I wanted to go to Greensboro or not because my performance in Toronto was so atrocious. I even had a flight booked back to Orlando from Washington DC on Sunday morning. My friend Harris Noor was driving down and told me I had a spot in his car if I wanted it so I told him that I would let him know as soon as I could. The week itself was an extremely lazy one where I just watched Netflix wrapped up in blankets and played PTCGO on my laptop. I was experimenting with Celesaur and attempting to convert it into Expanded with a change or two coming every game as I went. I hit a couple of friends on ladder and they told me I was crazy for wasting my time with this deck and I agreed with them and continued queuing up. It might have been the first time I reached the end of the ladder since the game first came out. Thursday night I found a one way flight that would get me back to Orlando at a reasonable time and decided that I would make the trip to Greensboro. I had booked my flight to Orlando from DCA on Southwest so it was an easy cancellation and I got to keep my flight credit to use at a later date, something I knew I would do flying frequently between the two locations. I had sleeved up the Green Machine and I then got dropped off at Harris’s home for the drive down.
Greensboro Regionals
The drive was a quiet one as I slept most of the way down and we arrived a little after noon. Once we checked into the hotel room some of the guys headed over to the venue to get cards for their PikaRom decks. I stayed back and began trying to make the Green Machine work. Justin Bokhari played 10 games against me using his ZoroGarb deck and after each game I made some changes as I saw fit. The latter half of the games saw me winning more than I was losing and I was becoming pleased with the deck itself. I had gathered all the cards for Jose’s Rayquaza deck as well because I believed it was a solid play considering it could beat anything except Garbodor decks. There was a few mistakes I made when I concocted the list, Shaymin instead of Wobb and playing Lillie even thought I didn’t need to. I had thought I could permanently heal forever with Shaymin but in practice it didn’t do too much. Had I tested more in real life I would have known that Wobb would have helped my bad matchups way more but hindsight is 20/20. Xander showed up late night and picked up almost an entire Archie’s Blastoise deck from me that we had adapted from Russell LaParre’s Top 8 deck the week before. It was a truly genius list and we chose to change 3 or 4 cards based on the meta we expected and called it a night. I made the last minute decision to add Steven’s Resolve into the deck and should have cut Lillie at the same time because Steven’s Resolve or Juniper were just better supporters every turn. I sleeved up my deck with 20 supporters, you heard that right, 20 Supporter Cards in the Expanded format and went to the New Jersey/New York crew’s Airbnb. At that point I wasn’t confident if Celesaur was worth pulling the trigger on or if anyone else had some spice for me. I saw some of the group on PikaRom and Peter was playing his Night March/Lucario deck that we had talked about. After winning 3 quick games against the deck and 2-0ing his Archie’s Blastoise I was riding a high on the deck. Everyone was saying things along the lines of “there’s no way you play that garbage deck tomorrow, it doesn’t make sense.” So naturally I played it.
Tournament day started and I honestly don’t know what I was expecting from the event. I stuck to my guns and played a stupid deck/idea that I had because I wanted to. Something that I hadn’t done outside of playing Vespiquen. I always second guess myself when it comes to deck choice and this time was no different, but I knew I would enjoy it after grinding the deck for the whole week and molding it in the way I wanted it. I found myself winning the first round and was pleasantly surprised at how well my deck functioned outside of testing, and understood how to approach certain matchups better now that the expected decks were out in the open for everyone to see. Round 2 I found myself on stream once again, and once again I was up against a bad matchup in the form of Hoopa/Regigigas stall. I couldn’t do anything once he got set up as I didn’t play an answer to his board and I conceded both games relatively quickly. I knew the matchup was terrible but it still hurt to lose once again on stream, a trend that was becoming a curse and a chip on my shoulder. I found myself face to face with 3 Rayquaza GX decks throughout the day, a matchup that should be near unwinnable because of their speed and unlimited damage cap but I stole a set off of two of them. I was once again at 6-2 but this time wanted to ID because I was proud of making it this far with a deck that I went outside the box for. Day 2 matchups looked promising so I just wanted to make sure I was there to compete. Here I faced off against Jimmy Pendarvis, who was a member of the DDG Squad that terrorized this season with their sheer dominance, he didn’t want to take the ID. I was nervous because I knew they were playing Archie’s Blastoise but what confidence did he have to reject my ID to what should be a bad matchup? After I won the flip before we even set up, Jimmy offered the ID and I accepted without hesitation. I was given some heat for this decision but in my mind I just wanted to give it my best shot the 2nd day of play.
Day 2 comes around and I find myself losing the first round to Alex Schemanske and his ZoroGarb deck. He was able to Red Card me into a dead hand the first game and the second game was taken by me with ease. The third game he struggled to get a Garbodor out but did get 4 Zoroark GX out on the 2nd turn, which meant that he saw way more cards than I ever could in a game. I needed to hit an energy off a crucial Sycamore to use Evergreen GX and heal my active to have a chance at the game, but I missed the energy and the game was lost from there. I won the next two and found myself face to face with the same Rayquaza GX player I had lost to on Day 1. A quick 10 minutes later I was sitting at 2-2 with no hope at Top 8. I was unaware of what my opponent was playing so I offered the ID to secure Top 32 and call it a day, turns out he was playing Trevenant, a now favorable matchup for me with the plethora of healing and I should have played so I could have make Top 16, but once again hindsight is 20/20.
Tournament finishes up and I watch Azul’s miracle Towering Splash over Alex from the airport as I wait to board my flight and I’m satisfied with my performance over the weekend. Naturally I wanted more but it felt really good to create something from scratch and prove to the world that it’s a viable concept. I headed back home knowing I had a solid 3 week reprieve to mentally reset and prepare for my final few weeks as a college student.
Denver Regionals
The strange lull of time between the last set of exams and final exams were looming and I figured what better way to spend it than playing Pokemon? I headed off to Denver set on playing PikaRom, a deck that I was familiar with and felt could really take over this format towards the end of it. I neglected to test until Friday when Regan Retzloff and Nico Alabas came in to the event. Nico had begun beating up on me with a Zapdos/Beasts deck that he took to a Top 4 finish a few weekends before at Bolzano SPE. My indecision as a player was showing and my anxiety struck worse than before and I was left floundering trying to figure out my deck choice. I decided to sleeve up the Zapdos deck as it should beat most of the metagame including Malmar, a deck Regan was familiar with and wanted to play in the event. After playing against Regan’s Onix/Ultra Necrozma/Jynx/Malamar, I found myself losing far more often than I was winning. I was not confident in any deck for the event anymore and just wanted to trust in my gut with Zapdos/Beasts and call it a night. I went to bed having sleeved up Zapdos but having the cards for Malamar pulled aside as well. When I woke up my gut was screaming Malamar but I guess this decision came from one of fear as opposed to being knowledgable on the format. I sleeved up Regan’s Malamar deck and went into the event not knowing what would happen, what ended up happening is that I dropped at 2-3 and decided that I was done playing Malamar. I had a lot of fun anyway in Denver but I remember leaving the venue after dropping and taking a nap because I was so dejected and wanted to forget the events of that day. I was feeling a bit sick and realized later that I had acute altitude sickness and wasn’t drinking enough water. The whole day I had a headache and felt like I would be anywhere but the tournament. I headed home after that weekend motivated and ready to test when I got home. I knew I had exams but I felt prepared enough to tackle them so I was ready to study and play Pokemon.
Guatamala SPE
This week during school I had talked to my professors about moving the 2 final exams to accommodate my travel to Berlin and there was no luck on that. Xander later suggested that I email my Dean of Business to see if that would help in any way, shape or form. Turns out it did! He emailed both my professors and asked them to change their exams on his behalf because I was doing something so amazing. In a separate email to me he cheered me on and told me to make UCF proud. It was a weird fuzzy feeling I got inside reading that and it made me happy. I sent it to my father who was equally excited for me and after booking a flight for 60,000 airline miles I was set for Berlin. In the meantime Guatamala. I had wanted to skip the flight and just stay home this weekend because of my results the week prior in Denver. I wanted to play PikaRom but also didn’t want to travel and come home with a bad result. My fear was kicking in that I wasn’t good enough to the standards I had set for myself. Jose Marrero was on my flight and staying with me so he kept being persistent that I come and it’ll be fine. I eventually caved and ended up showing up at the airport bright and early for a flight to Guatamala. Jose and I lazed around until Regan and Steve Retzloff came in and I had already set my mind to PikaRom. I had told myself that this time I wouldn’t switch decks no matter what my gut told me. I have had success at Special Events playing what I think was best every time and never fearing anything so I took that approach again. I was scared, scared my perfect record of earning points at Special Events would come to an end finally. My pristine record that only I cared about would be finally smeared. I stifled all my fears and after a dinner at PF Changs, we called it an early night due to the early travel.
It was gameday and we were up pretty early and a late start time meant we could take our time heading over to the venue. After showing up we were deck checked, when I say we I mean me, Jose and Regan…. and that was it. I was enraged because I was attempting to keep my deck and decklist a secret to the others but the deck checkers kept leaving my list face up in a public location and flipping all my cards face up for the entire event to see. I was unhappy and I voiced my concern to the organizer right then and there, he was understanding and apologetic and assured me it wasn’t malicious and simply their first time doing a Special Event so they didn’t know the procedure of everything correctly. I ran upstairs to get some ice cream to cool off and came back down to play. The first round had me playing a mirror match where my opponent pulled off some miracle plays to take Games 1 and 3 and I was left shocked. Starting 0-1 at a Special Event was something that had never happened to me. I was definitely in my own head at this point if I wasn’t before. I managed to win 3 sets that were harder than I expected and I was able to ID the last one to secure a berth in Top 8. In some stroke of good luck I had found myself back into Top 8 of a Special Event. My mediocre season had left me fighting for scraps to close out my Top 16 berth.
Top 8 began and I found myself playing against a fellow player from Florida who was fighting tooth and nail for his invite. Knowing how this player plays I was able to simply play better than him and take a series in a matchup I perceived to be poor. Top 4 had me against a Zoroark Control player, at this point I hadn’t tested this matchup at all but had a game plan going in. Jose was on the other side of the bracket against my Round 1 opponent. I was able to donk my opponent in the first game and the second game I was very far ahead and my opponent made a cardinal sin, double supporter. He played an Acerola and then followed up with a Judge. The whole table tried to stop him rapidly but he threw his deck into the deck far too quickly for human intervention to stop him. The Prize Penalty would have set him far enough back that I win the game next turn so he packed it up and after 2 games I barely played I found myself in the finals against Jose Marrero, one of my best friends. Game 1 was me killing both of his Grubbins and a quick scoop from Jose, Game 2 I scooped once he had an established board, and the 3rd game came down to my active PikaRom with a Weakness Policy ready to Tag Bolt for the game when he was able to find a Marshadow GX, Energy and Lysandre Labs to close out the game. Another bitter taste of defeat, again on a streamed match. When will I win again on stream? When will I win an important match that everyone is watching, cheering me on? Am I really the player that everyone thinks I am, or am I just a fluke? The thoughts running through my head weren’t amazing for my mental constitution but at the end of the day I was able to make the finals of this event. Regardless of the size or competition I was able to do what I set out to to do at the beginning of the weekend, earn some Championship Points.
Sunday was a day of reflection for all of us in the room as we hung out in the city and relaxed in our hotel room until it was time to head to the airport in the afternoon. A short flight home later I was getting ready to prepare for my final exams and had a hometown regionals to completely ignore preparing for until it was far too late.
Daytona Regionals
The weekend approached and I had originally planned to pick up Sierra and a few others from the airport after taking an exam early in the morning Friday. Getting out of my 8 AM exam I got a text from Sierra saying her flight was delayed, the others that they have chosen last minute not to go and a Snapchat from Xander Pero saying he just landed in Orlando. I messaged Xander and asked if he had left yet and he said no and that his parents would be picking up their car and leaving directly from there. I somehow convinced him to grab an Uber and come to my house instead on the promise that we would drive down that night. Once Xander got to my house I proceeded to take a nap like any friend would do when his friend flies in from Chicago. While waiting for Sierra we proceeded to get some lunch and head to Jeremiah’s, one of my favorite Gelato places since I moved to Florida. We received word that Sierra’s flight got cancelled and now she’d be flying in around 1 AM and Sam Chen would be heading straight to Daytona. We decided there’s no reason to hang around Orlando anymore and we hit the road to Daytona. Once we got to Daytona we were introduced to Sam’s friend Zach who had come to write a piece for the New York Times about Pokemon. If you’re aware of this at all you know that the piece was cut and instead published on a blog https://popula.com/2019/05/23/do-you-play-pokemon/. This piece sums up well an outsider’s view of our Pokemon culture and my friend groups culture especially for someone who doesn’t know much about Pokemon TCG.
We settled into our hotel room as Michael Slutsky and Alex Hill were commentating the next day so they were relaxing in the room and the rest of us were deliberating our deck choices. We were all looking ahead to Berlin which was in a few days rather than this aimless Expanded event on Easter Weekend. We walked to get some beach front pizza and as Zach stated we began helping Xander collectively with his girl problems. Once we got back to the room the deliberations continued and Xander left for his parents hotel and told us that he would play whatever we decided. Sam and I headed down to the lobby to let our prestigious casters sleep and we began talking about decks. After a message from Justin Bokhari we decided to go with a deck that I was pretty familiar with, Vespiquen. Sam and I chatted until about 3 AM and decided it was finally time to get some rest. After a relatively easy Day 1 I found myself at 6-1 staring down a good matchup, I thought to myself that I could ID here and figure it out the following round or take a decent matchup and risk the loss for a better chance at winning the event. I was able to win a quick set 2-0 and found myself at 7-1, already 2 match points higher than I would have been with an ID. My last round was Shock Lock and I just lost that match. Sam had scooped his win and in because he felt like he would have lost and Xander dropped relatively so only I had a decent outing. We headed to dinner and enjoyed ourselves with drinks, food and a walk on the beach at night.
Day 2 started up and I head over to the venue alone, the casters gone already and Sam sleeping in. He was resigned to work from the hotel room before we drive back to Orlando for the night. I lost my first set of the day to Jimmy Pendarvis on a Hypnotoxic Laser coin flip and felt a little heart broken but knew that I could still salvage the tournament. At 27 match points and 2 rounds left I knew that a win here would put me in a position to ID and secure a top cut berth. I found myself playing against Caleb Gedemer playing the same 60 as Jimmy earlier in the day. The 3rd game came down to two turns of Caleb needing me to stay asleep with Laser flips and it went exactly his way as I was beaten. Game in my hand for two turns and my Vespiquen staying asleep because of Laser. Saying I was tilted was an understatement as I was seething internally. Xander made some joke about playing better right after and I remember flying off the handle at him, I apologized later because I felt bad but he understood how I felt in that moment. I was also ready to go home so I wanted to ID the last round for Top 16 and get out of there, unfortunately for me I was uppaired into someone with 28 match points. I offered the ID the first time not understanding that my opponent was playing a Win and In round and he explained it to me, so I’m still really sorry about that Nick, I’m an idiot. After a couple of good back and forth games I was able to steal the series and as one of the last games to finish, Joey came up to me and informed me that I have a chance to make Top 8. Apparently 3 of the tables ended up tying and my win to the uppair had an unnatural situation where 2 of the 4 players at 30 Match points would be making it into Top Cut. I began to get my hopes up quickly and remembered that I started the Day 0-1 and that hope in a situation like this isn’t a good thing. They collected our decks for a deck check and roughly 20 minutes later I heard an announcement on the intercom, “Jose Marrero and Rahul Reddy please report to the deck check area to pick up your decks.” I hadn’t even seen the standings yet and I knew what that announcement meant for me. I wasn’t going to be playing in Top 8. I ended up being 10th which hurt once again but I felt more defeated than anything else. Important matches were becoming the bane of my existence, was I reaching my limit as a player? Was I making excuses for not testing constantly? Was I just bad now? Probably. The time and resources that push me to the top of the game were becoming scarce and I mentally had accepted defeat. I was defeated as a man.
I headed back to the hotel room, packed up my things and grabbed a tall Mr Sam Chen and we headed back to Orlando. Sam was staying the night at my friends Summer and Dan’s place so we all gathered round to watch the Sunday night Game of Thrones Episode. Sam having zero knowledge on Game of Thrones kept making likeness jokes that pleased me and the rest of the crowd. During this I was informed that our professor had sent an email out for a homework set due at midnight Sunday and that was sent Friday night. Great. I began feverishly messaging the few friends I had in the class to see if anyone had done it because the 3 hours I had left wasn’t going to give me nearly enough time to finish this. Luckily a friend who I had helped out prior was willing to help me out and I managed to submit my homework at 11:40ish PM before leaving Summer’s place for the night. I got home and I passed out, exhausted. Tuesday and Wednesday would have me taking 5 of my 7 Final Examinations. A stressful two days for myself and somehow I survived the entire process. My last two exams were slated for Monday evening and Tuesday morning. Monday being my hardest by far, and Tuesday being the easiest one that I had. With all my exams done, I grabbed my luggage and hopped in a 2 hour Uber to the Tampa Airport.
Berlin IC
Let me rewind and explain why I was leaving from Tampa instead of Orlando for my few day trip to Berlin. Flights from Orlando for the timings that I needed were nearing $1,600. Some would consider that a ridiculous sum of money to pay for a Europe flight. For reference my Berlin flight cost $270 this year. By maneuvering around some of the airports and times I was able to fly for only 60,000 miles, but I would leave from Tampa and return to Orlando so parking the car in Tampa was out of the question. I asked my lovely aunt if she would take me and there was no chance she would take me during rush hour, who would want to sit through 2 hours of traffic and then 2 hours on the way back? I was surprised to even find an Uber willing to pick me up and take me that far but a kind old lady was able to do it. She complained the entire way about the drive and how she would have to get back and figure out a way to do that but what I needed had been done and I was good to go. I got to the Tampa airport and fatigue hit me quick, 5 Final Exams in 2 days was far too much for me to handle and I was getting ready to fall asleep. Within minutes of boarding the plane I passed out. I slept like a baby until I touched down in Munich. I had a quick time getting through customs and a 2 hour layover ahead of me before my short flight to Berlin. I grabbed a quick sandwich and boarded my next flight, a short and cramped one compared to the dreamliner I had just flown on to get here. The flight was far too short for me to get any rest so I landed in Berlin and was left to my own devices. I procured a Metro/Bus pass for 7 days and jumped on the nearest bus that took me to the metro station that my GPS indicated. 40 minutes later I was at the Airbnb where everyone was. Games were going in full swing and everyone was there. I had no idea what people were liking because of the variety of the decks at the table. I had decided that PikaRom would be my play because of how fluent I felt with the deck and I felt like it was the best deck in the format by far. I hung around for a little bit and got settled into my bed until it was time to go to check in. Three bus stops and 2 metro stops is how far the venue was, roughly 10-15 minutes of travel depending on the train times. We gathered everyone and headed over where I met up with Limitless and some other European players that we rarely have a chance to hang out with. My last time working with the group had net me a Top 16 berth so I was eager to do it again. Pedro informed me that they have a secret deck that they need me to play against before they can decide if its good or not. He said Fabien will bring it that night to play against me and if he can beat me I have to play it. After check in we all headed to a nice river side dinner, a large part of the NA contingent and EU elites all at one table just joking around, playing Pokemon GO and just enjoying each other’s company. Dinner finished up and we headed back to the venue to grab out backpacks from our friend Joe’s room. After that we headed back to our Airbnb posthaste.
Fabien arrived and in a serious manner locks the door and says its time to test. He pulled out this crazy deck I had never even heard of before and I was quickly 2-0d. You guys may know it better as Shedinja. I then spent the night trying to gather the cards for the deck when I was talking to Tord about the deck, he told me that he won’t be playing it because he doesn’t have enough practice and that he advises that I do the same thing. I talked to some of the other Limitless guys and they seemed to be on PikaRom as well, a clear best deck in format. I decided on a few card changes, informed both Xander and Sam of my card changes and I decided that would be the night for me.
I woke up for the morning and all of a sudden my stomach was in pain. Excruciating pain. I ran to the bathroom and decimated the toilet. This did not stop all day, every round I was afraid that my bowels would betray me and I would have to bring an extra pair of underwear. 6 Rounds in I found myself a miserable 4-2, playing terribly, stomach still in pain, the bathroom my favorite location to visit during the tournament. Steve Retzloff and Dan Wallace made a run to a local drug store and grabbed me some miracle drug, Round 7 I hit a good friend Nico Galaz and we chose to ID to keep our tournament lives alive. It was a stupid decision on my part if I wanted to win the tournament but given the state of my body and mind, I would have IDd if I got to 6-2 anyway so what’s the harm in doing it now. After a 50 minute nap on a table in a corner I woke up feeling like a new man. A man who didn’t need to run to the bathroom every 2 minutes. Round 8 I was paired into ZapBeasts, a matchup no one in my group but myself enjoyed playing. I proceeded to secure a swift 2-0 and secure points. Now the anticipation grows. I’m nervous. Another important match. A single ruling took almost 10 minutes leaving me pacing back and forth with headphones in and the same song on repeat. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, just focus. Round 9 pairings go up, it’s not a friend of mine so we hope for the best. I sit down and he said something that sent chills down my spine “We sat next to each other last round so you must know what I’m playing, because I know yours.” I wasn’t paying any attention to the games around me, I had zero clue. What could it be? Why does he sound so confident? My worries were washed away mere seconds later when he flipped over a Shaymin and I was able to donk it with Zapdos. Only one game left to make Day 2 of another IC? Game 2 was much grindier but after careful play on my part to save all 4 Electropowers till the very end I was able to use 3 of them to seal the game and set, propelling me into the second day of play. I was excited and what’s more is that my friends and roommates had made it with me, Xander, Jon, Connor would all be playing the next day from my room. We headed to a small Doner shop nearby that everyone said was amazing and hesitantly I ate, and it was delicious and amazing because it was the first food I could keep down all day. I headed back and after a quick shower found myself sound asleep, waking up to my alarm the next morning and nothing else.
Day 2 time and 6 rounds were ahead of us. The first round of the day had me pitted against one of Brazil’s finest, Otavio Gouveia. Our game was incredibly close that had me stealing a 2-0 victory at the hands of a top deck Guzma for the game. The second round of the day had me against Australia’s most consistent player, Brent Tonisson. Our game was jovial and one where we really became friends and got to know each other through mutual respect and our own childish nature. With friendly banter through the whole set I barely lost having Electropower and Choice Band as my last two prizes in a Game 3 scenario where either would have won me the game. I still remember the reaction Brent had when I flipped them both over and conceded, it’s the reason that a single match can make you a lifelong friend. At 1-1 on the day I was effectively eliminated from Top 8 contention unless I made some sort of miracle run and had a little help go my way. I wasn’t thinking about winning the event, much less making Top 8 at this point in time. I was simply taking every game as they came and just playing the game. The third and fourth rounds of the day were mixed together but I was up against another Australian player for this one who was piloting ZapBeasts, a matchup I had become quite fond of. While everyone kept telling me it was unfavored, I didn’t drop a single game to it throughout the tournament and felt confident that had I played the Weakness Policy it would have even been an autowin. Whether that came from my experience as a player playing PikaRom or sheer confidence, only time would tell. Regardless, no one could argue with my record against the deck despite their confusion. The third or fourth round also had me face to face with Joe Montalbano, a friend of Sam Chen’s who had picked up the trading card game competitively only a few months prior to this event and was in his first Day 2 of an IC. Joe and I were familiar with each other and the environment was another fun jovial game. I pointed out some of the simple mistakes Joe had been making throughout the game to give me an advantage because I wanted it to be a learning experience for my friend, he admitted that I was taking lines of play he was unfamiliar with and it really threw off his textbook knowledge of the game. Experience was the determining factor there in my win and we both knew that. Something interesting that happened during that game was that next to us was a Magic the Gathering player who had made Day 2. The reason we knew that is because he was vocal about it, he mentioned it many times. He called a judge because he didn’t believe that the sequence of plays his opponent made was game, and then exclaimed that he played Magic, once again to the amusement of all of us surrounding him. The fifth round had me against Jit Min of Singapore and this man was a seasoned veteran who always brought the craziest of decks to tournaments. I hadn’t been paying too much attention besides the fact that he was playing Greninja Spread. I didn’t know any of the counts of what I was even going to be up against to be honest. The first game I employed a strategy and he never really set up, the second game I tried it again and I failed miserably. I didn’t see the Larvitar in his deck, I barely knew what Greninja did, and Counter Catcher was in his deck too. It was a basket of surprises I was horribly underprepared for. The third game came down to a mistake from Jit, he was out of Double Colorless Energies so he didn’t want to deactivate his own Counter Energies. By wanting to do so he miscalculated the prizes he needed to take and left my Absol alive with 20 HP left and a Frogadier in play where he placed the damage on my active that didn’t need to be there. I Let Loosed and attacked with Jolteon GX to end the game but had the prize count been different I would have just used Zapdos so it might not have been a mistake but it was one that made my line of play much easier. I didn’t know his gust counts till after the game when I found out that it was 1 Guzma and 1 Counter Catcher and the Guzma was gone already. I could have lost the game if Jit had played it correctly, he would have needed a Larvitar + Counter Energy + Counter Catcher onto my Jolteon GX on the bench. A lot of pieces but a chance for me to lose nonetheless. I was relieved that I had made my way through that crazy deck. The last round was coming up, everyone was talking to me about resistance and whether or not I would make Top 8 if I won my last game. None of that was on my mind, the only thing that mattered was winning this last game, then I could worry about everything.
The last round I was up against the man who is known as the final boss, the king of ICs, Tord Reklev. Tord is a player who has dominated the International scene and someone who plays immaculately, when I watch him play games on stream I think about the possible mistakes that players can make and barring his finals against Stephane, he plays perfect. I was scared to say the least, honored, intimidated, accepting of my fate. I didn’t check my phone before my match because I was so nervous but my friends were cheering me on from home and they believed in me, to break my curse and win this important match. Peter Kica even went so far as to watch the stream match with Tord in it and find his exact 60 cards and send it to me before the match began, meanwhile I didn’t check my phone so this valuable information was left unused. PikaRom mirror against one of the best players this game has produced. The first game was a high powered slugfest with Tord taking some expected lines and playing how I expected a player of his caliber to play, and I prepared my turns accordingly. It was a risky strategy going all in and hoping he would respond to my board the way he did but I didn’t expect Tord to play poorly at all and that came to my aid in this match. The first game was as expected for me and I snagged it, the second game however was a snoozefest. Both of our hands were dead but I was able to get the first live card and begin the game a turn later and do what PikaRom does best, apply pressure. Living off of top decks, Tord realized his tournament life was about to be cut short and he gave it his best effort. A few turns of nothing from Tord’s side, a few minutes of me realizing what was about to happen, a few minutes of the onlookers whispering, watching, enthralled by the big names and the high stakes set to 50 minutes on the clock with 3 turns after. Tord extends his hand and I shake it, the first thing to set in was shock. I won an important match? I was able to beat Tord? The happiness hadn’t set in, or any feeling for that matter. I was instantly taken to the back by some staff members to put in my information for the Top 8 and my deck was collected for a check. I walked back to the area of play to see how the remaining games would play out and my friends were elated that I had put myself in a position to make Top 8 at an International for the first time in my career.
This is when my mind began racing a million miles a second. What if I make the finals? Can I stay and play and try and find a flight that will get me back in time for my Monday exam so I can graduate college? Who do I need to lose and win so that I can make Top 8? Is my resistance even that good? What are my possible matchups? What can I do to win this tournament? Where can I find something to drink, preferably a Red Bull? All of these came to a screeching halt when I heard an announcement asking me to come to deck check area. My first thought was that I had bubbled and they were asking me to come pick up my deck, but there was still games going on, how would they know? My second thought was “oh no, I have a decklist error.” I was worried to say the least but I walked over there terrified. I was greeted by some deck checkers who explained that I had a lightning energy and a switch that were damaged within the sleeve and could potentially be used to my advantage. I was baffled that damage to a card in a solid color sleeve could even be seen, much less used to my advantage. I appealed the warning to the Head Deck Checker to no avail. I had replaced the two cards and was a little upset to say the least, but I would either be heading into Top 8 with a warning or exiting the tournament with a warning. I began walking back over to the play area as I see players swarming the pairings board, the final standings were up. I didn’t have a chance to check for myself as Justin Bokhari and Jose Marrero came over to me with their hands held high and a smile on their face, I was going to be advancing as the 8th seed. I told them if this was a joke then I would be so incredibly sad but it wasn’t and I was up against the first seeded Alex Silva and his ZoroRoc deck. The next thirty minutes were spent discussing with my parents what I would do on the off chance that I make the finals regarding my education and discussing with the head judge what my possible options even could be. I was stressed and beyond myself with joy all at the same time. Another announcement, this time asking Top 8 competitors to report to the stage area. Me and my fellow competitors made our way there and after another rules briefing we were sent to our tables with our respective table judges. Game 1 against Alex went as perfectly as it could have, I won the flip and was able to eliminate a Rockruff Turn 2 with Full Blitz, powering up my board quickly. The second game was all Alex from minute one, he was able to establish three Zoroark GX and an Alolan Muk on his second turn shutting me out of the game. The third game was interesting because it was a back and forth between the two of us but I had prized my Koko Prism. Alex had used 2 Guzma, Judge and his Pal Pad late into the game and we were at 4 to 4 prize cards. I needed one more energy attachment onto the board to use Koko’s GX attack and then follow up with Zeraora GX to clean out the game, I had plentiful amounts of Electropowers in my hand. This is where Alex’s list being stranger than others helped him out and caught me off guard. I had thrown up a Jirachi as a sacrifice to throw off the prize trade but he played 3 Guzma. The third Guzma was able to bring up my Tapu Koko GX and smack it for 50 Damage with a choice band on his Zorua. This meant my clock was accelerated and I couldn’t do anything about it. I moved the energy to Koko GX using Energy Switch, slammed down the Thunder Mountain and used my GX for the KO on his Zoroark GX with a Guzma. Now I have one energy on my Zeraora GX and need the Thunder Mountain to stay in play for me to have a chance at this game. To my dismay, Alex had his last Devoured Field and set himself up perfectly to close out the game the following turn. I couldn’t deal with his Rockruff hanging out on the bench and the next turn he was able to use Lycanroc’s Bloodthirsty Eyes to bring up my Zeraora GX on the bench and take his final two prizes for the game. A single energy attachment away from Top 4 and a trophy, to this day it leaves a sour taste in my mouth. I felt like I had played as well as I could have but the goddess of good fortune did not smile on me that day, one could say I was fortunate to make it that far and I won’t disagree with you but what a crappy time for my luck to run out.
I walked over with Brent, who had also lost his Top 8 match and we headed over to the Prize Wall to pick up our prizing. A beautiful Top 8 mat, which I am incredibly proud of and choose to use, a German Top 8 stamped Choice Band card, and a case of Team Up were dropped into my arms and that was the end of my Cinderella Story. I headed over to my friends who were playing games like Love Letter and Coup and waiting for me to finish before we headed back to the Airbnb. They told me they were proud of me and I took my decklist picture to post right there as well, Philip Schulz came by as well with his prizing and we exchanged tales of our Top 8 matches, shook our heads and congratulated each other, both of us wishing our runs hadn’t ended there but both grateful to be there. We headed back to the Airbnb and the plans for the night began being made. One group was planning on napping before an outing to the club and one group headed to grab some dinner. After eating we headed back to the Airbnb and I packed up my suitcase having an early morning flight the next day and not wanting to deal with it in the morning. There was some banter and after some quick convincing I had decided to head to the club with everyone that night. We had an immense amount of fun and we ran into other Pokemon players out that night who were also enjoying their last night in Berlin. We were out until almost 3 AM and then headed back to the Airbnb to get some well earned rest. I didn’t have the time to rest as I was heading home in a few hours, I kept Sam up with me as we chatted about life in general until it was time for me to grab an Uber for my flight. I get to the airport, ready to fall asleep in my seat on my flight but know that I need to stay strong until I board. I get to the gate to check in for my flight and the woman working there offers me a voucher if I choose to take a later flight, I was going to listen to the offer but planned on rejecting it on account of my exam the next day and how tired I was from the tournament and a night out at the club. Instead of flying through Frankfurt straight to Orlando, I would be flying through Newark and landing in Orlando 20 minutes later than I would have been originally, for $500. That seemed too good to be true, the downside was waiting an extra 2 hours at the Berlin airport for my flight. I chose to take the effectively free money and sat at a coffee shop for the next two hours, doing everything I could to keep my eyes from shutting, alarms set on my phone with headphones in. After an excruciating 2 hours I was able to go through security an hour before the flight. I was stopped and my entire suitcase was searched randomly, I know it’s their job and that they’re doing what they can to keep everyone safe but I was being a dick to them. I implied it was because I was brown which granted me a body search on top of my luggage check, smooth moves Rahul. I had priority boarding which was a god send as I boarded and within minutes I was asleep. I woke up to the wheels touching down in Newark, NJ. I was famished but I was well rested for the first time in days. The flight felt like I had blinked my eyes and landed in Newark, teleportation as I call it.
I had a 3 hour layover so I headed to the lounge for a quick bite to eat and to print off the study guides for my exam the next day. I grabbed a delicious Buffalo Chicken Sandwich and a tall glass of Lemonade and began hitting the books. I had no time to enjoy the success of my Top 8, I had to come down from Cloud 9 or I would be doing a single summer class to graduate. I made my customary social media posts to dump all the feelings I had at the moment, especially my joy and to mentally refocus on the task ahead of me. The next three hours were spent studying on my flight home and then after some more studying and music I slept once again. After taking the hardest final exam of my career I was convinced that I had failed from having a 97% in the class before the exam, the exam was worth 40% of my final grade. My classmates and I went to grab a cold beer and watch Avengers Endgame for the first time in an attempt to forget that exam we just took. The Tuesday exam was a simple one for me and my college career was seemingly done. Thursday morning at 8 AM would be my ceremony, so now we wait for my grades to trickle in. 6 grades were in the books at the end of Tuesday night and I had mostly As and a couple of Bs, not too shabby for how little time I spent in the country this semester. The exam from Monday? Still not in the system. Professors technically had until the end of day Friday to put in grades so I might have to walk the stage Thursday without knowing if I had graduated or not. In fact, that’s EXACTLY what I ended up doing. My parents, aunt, sister, cousins and grandparents all came to my ceremony and we headed to this brunch place my aunt really likes afterwards, Cafe Tutu Tango. I’m not the biggest fan of breakfast but I ate my fill that day, it was a good day. Next step? Go home and nap of course. After a short nap I headed to a friend’s graduation party that night where we lamented our Monday exam and just enjoyed our time reflecting on our respective journeys. He headed off to Denver to work and I hope he’s doing well, despite his constant panicking it was comforting having someone else drowning alongside me. Friday evening a message from someone else in the class was sent in the GroupMe chat, “WTF I got an F in the class, are you kidding me???” My heart sunk, cold chills went down my back and I was shaking. I texted my two close friends in the class that grades were up and I went to check my grades. It wasn’t in the gradebook, Javeon texted me back “I got an A- bro, I’ll take it.” I went to the final grades section and the few seconds it took the page to load were the longest seconds of my life so far, as the screen lethargically loaded I saw one letter in the Final Grade for Course column, B. I had never been so happy to see that letter in my life, I texted my dad to come upstairs to my room because I didn’t tell my whole family about the situation I was facing, but my parents were aware. He came upstairs and we joyfully high fived and he embraced me with pride. I had earned my undergraduate degree. Saturday night my dad headed home leaving my mother here with her sister in Orlando where I would be for a few weeks until San Jose regionals, a trip I was taking now thanks to my $500 United Voucher. My mother also flew Southwest which meant I could send back some luggage with her from my move home, what I would be doing next or where I would be living where a giant question mark, but moving back to Virginia made the most sense to me at the time.
Colombia SPE
The next week was spent being as lazy as humanly possible with constant hibernation, the occasional break to eat or watch Netflix existed but it was just nothing going on. I spent time with my friends in Orlando, headed to game stores every once in a while and enjoyed having no responsibilities on my plate. I hadn’t even begun touching up my resume or applying for jobs because I hadn’t intended on starting work until after this years World Championships at the very least. I hadn’t intended on going to any tournaments besides the occasional League Cup until San Jose regionals but a cheap ticket and a strange impulse had me on a flight to Colombia for their SPE. I landed at 2 AM and when I landed I checked in for my return flight at midnight the same day, a strange feeling to say the least. I headed to the hotel and got some rest before gearing up to play the same PikaRom deck that I had played over in Berlin. 5 Rounds of play later I found myself in top cut of another Special Event, this one was notably smaller in attendance from the American contingent because Cancun and Panama were conducting their events on the same day. All three saw a dominating US player presence with Dillon Bussert and Alex Schemanske winning their events, in Colombia however I lost in Top 8 and Justin Kulas fell in Top 4. A string of unfortunate luck but we headed back to the hotel for a steak dinner before I took a nice shower and prepared for my flight home. A short trip but an experience nonetheless. The next week would have me heading to Santa Clara for the regionals coming up and I had already been preparing a PikaRom list for that event online. Some of you may know it from the success it saw at Madison Regionals including Xander Pero taking it to a Top 4 berth.
Santa Clara Regionals
I spent the week packing up all my belongings and saying my goodbyes in Orlando. It was a start to the rest of my life, what I would be doing or where I would be working. One thing was sure for me however, I didn’t want to start my new job until after this year’s World Championships had passed so September if possible. I was heading back to Virginia to stay with my parents because it meant that rent was covered and for the most part so was the food I’d be eating. I packed everything I had, my room that was once littered with Pokemon cards, plushies and other apparel was all packed into 2 Checked bags and a Carry-On suitcase. I took everything with me early Friday morning on a flight to San Jose where I would meet up with Peter Kica and be picked up by Kian Amini. Kian was gracious enough to pick us up and house us for the weekend. We headed to some all you can eat sushi place that I really enjoyed and after we had found ourselves in a food induced coma we headed to Channel Fireball for some testing, a store better known for its Magic team. Here’s where I took my experimental PikaRom list and began testing against the expected decks, Zoroark matchup felt amazing, Stall matchup felt good but the real issue came at the hands of Zapdos variants. I couldn’t handle them no matter how hard I tried and for a deck that we expected a lot of the following day, I couldn’t take a loss to Zapdos. We headed to the Rosa’s household to get some last minute testing in and Kian was impressing all of us with his Green’s ReshiZard deck. I took it for a spin and played a couple of games with it and was content playing it. Peter was set on his Stall deck that he concocted and Kian and I were left discussing the final tech cards we would have in the deck. I wanted to make sure the deck had Stealthy Hood if we were playing it because I respected Vileplume far too much and we’re both glad we played the card in the end.
After a long day of play and some unfortunate matchups I found myself at 5-3-1 and Kian found himself advancing comfortably into the 2nd day of play, Peter also moved along with him leaving me the sole loser in this situation. We headed out to dinner that night at a Korean Barbecue place and ate to our hearts content. After eating we headed back and talked through some of the matchups for the next day and went to bed. I asked Kian if I could tag along in the morning and he was more than willing. I was discouraged but knew the deck was strong in its own right, I thought Kian had a realistic shot at winning the entire tournament if he avoided the Baby Blacephalon deck. I stayed up late that night because MSI Grand Finals was taking place at a perfect time for me to watch. As Kian’s cat and I curled up to watch North America’s Team Liquid get destroyed by Europe’s G2 Esports in the fastest set in history, I thought about what I could do to make my PikaRom deck better. I was headed to Madison in a few weeks so I wanted to make sure that I could build it to handle the threats that were emerging from this tournament and the expected counter meta. We head to the venue in the morning and Kian makes a run through the whole tournament, even taking down a Baby Blacephalon deck to make his way to the finals. In the finals, Alex Schemanske’s Ability ReshiZard deck was taken down to its own lack of setup but the same deck took down the regionals in Brazil the same day in the hands of Pablo Meza. This created a whole new threat for everyone to deal with and target, a seemingly all powerful high roll deck that emerged out of the shadows.
Madison Regionals
Madison was an event that I had contemplated staying home for as I had already secured my berth in Top 16 at this point despite it being a lower seed. The top 14 slots of the 16 had been effectively locked up and there was two spots up for grabs, a few hundred points away from where I was sitting. One of my closest friends in the game Xander Pero however was graduating from high school that Thursday beforehand. His family was gracious enough to extend an invitation for me to attend and I couldn’t refuse such an honor. It was silly to say but I was happy for the kid and filled with pride to see him look all goofy in his cap and gown, we’ve been close friends for almost 3 years now and to see him grow so much in such a short time was something amazing. It reminded me that this community that I’ve been a part of was more than just competitors and friends, it created bonds that are akin to family. To me he is family, the idiot little brother I’ve always wished I had. Anyways, post celebrations we headed to a Graduation Dinner where we had Steve and Regan Retzloff come join us for some festivities. We enjoyed the dinner and headed to the Pero’s household for some board games and winding down. The next morning we woke up leisurely and had Will Jenkins roll up to the house. The Peros had somethings to take care of before they could hit the road for the 3 hour drive so Xander, Will and I departed on our journey to Madison, WI.
On our short road trip we stopped at a cheese castle of sorts. I was intrigued as I had never been to a cheese castle, apparently a common thing in Wisconsin. After some delicious Cheese Curds and a Grilled Cheese Sandwich, they seem to really enjoy their Cheese, we hit the road once again. We arrived in Madison with plenty of daylight to spare and some testing to be done. I was dead set on my PikaRom deck because I had put hours into the deck and was confident that it could compete with the top decks in this format, what scared me most? Zapdos/Beasts. I was confident after the counters that had plagued Zapdos in Santa Clara that it would be less than popular to play this weekend. I had expected Green’s ReshiZard and Zoroark Variants to spearhead the decks that were played and I was right… kind of. Ability Zard also joined in on the fray. There was a group of non believers in the deck until I decided to play everyone who said they could compete gauntlet style, and after defeating every challenger thoroughly I was ready to head to bed. Will Jenkins and Justin Bokhari locked in the deck with myself, Xander and Regan. After 8 rounds of play we found ourselves all in Day 2, except I was 6-2 facing an ID and in scenario. The DDG Charizard list wasn’t playing Choice Bands which handed us a favorable matchup into them and a chance at taking down this tournament was in all of our sights. I sat down against my opponent who was playing Zoroark GX and after 2 swift games I advanced to 7-2 at the cost of a guilty conscience. I felt bad because I chose to play my last one out and end someone’s tournament life despite knowing I could have brought them into Day 2 with me, it was a strange feeling. I knew it was the correct decision however to have a tournament winning run. With all 4 of us who played the deck advancing to the second day we felt confident that we could handle the entire field ahead of us.
Later that night we grabbed a quick dinner and headed back to the room relatively early, no one seemed to want to hit the town as much this year and after a few drinks it was just sleep time. The next day was going to be interesting as all of us had the potential to make Top 8 easily, with Justin having the hardest hill to climb coming in at 6-2-1. Will at 8-1 had the best shot and Xander and myself were at the 7 win mark already with Xander having a tie to bolster his record. The first round had me play against Caleb and the DDG ReshiZard deck. The first game went exactly as I had planned it and I was able to run away with it, the second was a train wreck and I reset for the third. The third game was another trainwreck as I had the KO on his ReshiZard that he used Kiawe onto with my Tapu Koko GX but after a Guzma and Dedenne GX, I was unable to find a Lightning Energy to attack. A heartbreaking way to lose the game but it is what it is. The next two rounds had me with wins on the board before heading into my fourth round against Granbull. The first game felt easy but the next two games my deck decided to stop working and shut down entirely on me. After taking that rough loss I was eliminated from Top 8 contention. With one round left Will had somehow put himself in a win and in situation after starting 8-1, Xander was in and myself and Justin were out of Top 8. If we could convert 2/4 it still would be a win in my books. I managed to hit a Zoroark GX deck and stole that game relatively quickly and awaited my compatriots results. Will had lost and was crestfallen, nothing I could say would console him, the only thing that would help would be time. Xander won his Top 8 match as the remaining members in the venue accompanied myself and the New York gang to a nearby Noodles and Company for some food after a long day. We came back in time to watch the Top 4 matches and came back just in time to watch Xander prize terribly against Azul in that match and lose the series in a close Game 3 scenario. During the match Jose Marrero and I were chatting with some of the DDG guys and they jokingly mentioned that they have a discussion about what Jose and I play at events because we seemingly always counter them randomly and we all had a good laugh. We stayed till the event concluded and headed to the bars for a night out on the town. I was staying with Xander that night as we were going to head back in the morning at our leisure to Chicago, I had an evening flight and I believe Will’s was in the afternoon as well. Xander and I headed out to the location where a bar deal had been set up, for me to drink and Xander to eat some dinner. There were naturally other Pokemon people there and we became one big group that was enjoying themselves and the event as a whole. Naturally people started to head back and but I was drinking and enjoying myself so I was resigned to stay for a while longer. The bartender made me something called a “Sour Patch Kid” drink that was basically a sugary concoction of liquor and sweet and sour that tasted heavenly. The night was spent drinking those because I was in love. The bartender was even kind enough to make me two for the road before his shift ended and I tipped heavily to show my gratitude. As half the party had left and this bar was closing soon we made our way to a second bar down the road, Xander said goodbye and headed back to get some rest as we had a drive ahead of us in the morning. The second bar was more of a college scene and one I was accustomed to, we began taking shots like there was no tomorrow and Dan Garman, a heavy weight and drinking legend, challenged me to chug a beer pitcher alongside him. Me in my drunken state agreed, and after downing the entire thing I realized why it was a bad idea. I made a mad dash to the bathroom and emptied the contents of my stomach quickly. It was all in one fell swoop and luckily I had caught myself before anything could happen, I washed my face and headed back out to join the others only to realize that a chunk of the party had vanished as well. I was too tired now to care and I gathered Jose and we made our way back to our hotel to get some rest for the night as the lights were on and I presume last call had already been made. After raiding the refrigerator for whatever snacks were leftover from the weekend I made my way to bed post-haste and woke up feeling like a new man. Thankfully my constitution has blessed me with never having had a hangover and I hope it stays that way. The morning drive was filled with advice for Xander about life, college and the future and what it may hold and after a few hours in the Pero household we headed to the airport. The flight home was a quick one but I had the last part of the season before worlds left, Origins and the North American International Championships.
Origins SPE
As the only one who was responsible enough or had the means to fund it I was in charge of booking an Airbnb for about 12 people for the course of the Origins Special Event and the week after through NAIC. The two events were being held in back to back weekends at the Greater Columbus Convention Center so we didn’t have to go anywhere fortunately. Unfortunately we were stuck in Ohio. I arrived Thursday morning which was a day before the main event and the Peros graciously picked me up for the event. I was staying in a hotel for the weekend but could check into the Airbnb after the weekend was over, I believe Sunday. I had gathered a rag tag group of individuals who all needed a place to stay held together by one common connection, their knowledge of me. I had a few European players, Bert and Stephane, alongside Will Jenkins and Justin Bokhari, in addition to them some North Carolina players that came along with Grant Manley. Finally it was populated by myself, Connor Finton and his girlfriend Jordan until the main event where we would head to our hotels. Yes you read that right, I wasn’t staying the entire duration. The reason was that I had already committed to the New York room and didn’t want to back out of a hotel within walking distance as opposed to a 10 minute Uber to the venue each day. Now where were we? Oh right Thursday morning, Origins starts.
I rush to the venue alongside Xander to play in the Expanded League Cup that day. Naturally I was going to be playing Vespiquen and I honestly can’t remember what Xander played but it wasn’t that. Grant needed a deck to play so he copied my deck, with one small terrible change. He couldn’t find 4 Unown so he played 2 Klefki in their slot. In the first round I found myself face to face with Frank Percic who was going for his invite so I conceded my match and waited for everyone else to finish their round. Round 2 and 3 were something I can’t remember so I was 2-1 at one point, the 4th round had me up against Sean Lyden and his Shock Lock. I scooped once he established the lock and decided it was time for lunch. We headed to the North Market, which for those of you unaware is littered with an assortment of food and caters to anyone and everyone. I enjoyed my lunch and then I was heading back to the venue to watch how top cut played out, actually I’m just kidding I went to enjoy the Game Fair. I was there on behalf of Team ARG to demo the new game Argent Saga and my entry was covered for the game fair itself so it only felt right to head over to my team’s booth and try out the game. I sauntered over and got my bag of goodies for the pilot set and sat down and learned the mechanics of the game, it was interesting and a culmination of some of the better aspects of a few existing games so I was enjoying myself. I walked around a bit more just to explore what the fair had to offer and was overwhelmed by the amount of amazing board games and other goodies I saw everywhere. I headed back to the League Cup area and found Grant in the finals with the budget Vespiquen deck, it was pretty funny seeing him there with only 2 Unown.
I headed to my hotel for the night and met up with Justin, Harris and Will to decided our decks for tomorrow. Harris was playing for a lot because any CP would secure him his invite to Worlds, so he was naturally nervous, Will was the same because he was playing for a shot at a Top 16 berth for World Championships. Justin and I however had nothing to lose and we were just there to get some practice in before NAIC. Justin and I decided to experiment with a Zoroark/Silvally deck we had seen perform well in other regions and cater it to the meta we expected. It seemed like a fun deck to try out and give Zoroark GX one more chance in our minds before potentially going back to PikaRom. The next day saw us both go 4-2-1 at the event netting CP but losing to the same Malamar player and I suffered a loss at the hands of Jose Marrero who was playing Turbo ReshiZard due to prizing my Water Memories. Jose ended up bubbling in 9th Place and the jokes began at his behalf once again. After redeeming our prize wall tickets that we earned, we headed to the Airbnb to check in for the night. Accompanied by Top 8 Origins finisher, and an old friend of mine Nate Kaplan. Nate fit right in to the group and we played some Smash Brothers that night and just enjoyed our time there, the next day was going to be League cups for some but something new for myself, a KeyForge Vault Tour.
I had played KeyForge a couple of times on and off but hadn’t really played in any tournaments or locals or anything besides the occasional game with Regan and Xander. I didn’t want to play the cups as I had nothing to play for and nothing I wanted to test in particular so I headed to the Vault Tour. Nate was also playing so I had a familiar friend at the very least who could explain some of the rules and structure of the event. I opened my 3 decks that were sealed and had to pick one to play with for the main event, I had but 30 minutes to decide and I had no knowledge of what any of the cards did in the new set. After some reading and hypothesizing what synergies seemed strong I was able to lock in a deck and the tournament began. 6 rounds later I was 3-3, not too bad for my first tournament and a regional level one at that. I felt like one of my losses was just due to not knowing how my deck worked correctly and one was to not knowing how my opponent’s deck worked, but one I was thoroughly outplayed and it felt bad to lose when that happened. Overall it was a new experience and one that I really enjoyed doing, I would love to try that again. Nate and I headed over to the Pokemon area and the cup was in full swing so for the fun of things we entered a Prerelease event. It wasn’t your usual prerelease because you could ask for a kit from any set in the format but it was still conducted as a prerelease. It was refreshing being unrecognized, just any other common guy playing in an introductory Pokemon event with Nate being the only one who recognized me. After some fun rounds I met back up with everyone else to see what they were up to, they had no plans so we made a group decision to head to Melt Burger for dinner. After dinner we stayed up late playing Mafia until it seemed like a good time to go home. Sunday was another cup and a challenge being held at the venue but I had no intentions of playing either. I had come to a mecca of board games and card games and hadn’t had a chance to explore yet to my heart’s content. Xander had already left so I grabbed my trusty sidekick Regan for the day. We wandered the venue looking for something to do and started off dabbling in a little Magic the Gathering. Shortly after we went through the board game section where I spent around $200 picking up games I thought would be entertaining to try out, the biggest hit being TrapWords, a game made by the same people who made CodeNames. One last stop at the Pokemon area as they’re tearing down the venue and the usual group reformed to play some more Mafia and just hang around the city. Sunday night was a quick stop to Walmart to pick up essentials for our week in Columbus and just a reprieve from the hubbub of Origins. It felt strange because the usual wind down from an event involved going home and getting some rest before coming back but this time it was already time to switch gears for the last International of the season.
I’m still in Columbus for some reason
The Monday was a lazy one where we didn’t think about Pokemon at all. The vast majority of the group spent their weekend playing multiple cups and challenges as well as the special event while I was off enjoying my time with board games. The group had some who were resigned to staying in and being lazy with their day while myself and some others headed to the downtown area to have some fun at Escape Rooms. We frequented the one directly next to the Late Night Slice and played pretty much every room they had. I highly recommend the Mad King Ludwig room for anyone who’s interested at this year’s NAIC. Monday evening we headed back and Stephane and Bert had joined us. Testing resumed as they had come off of a regionals this past weekend where the pair of them finished in the Top 8. Bert was high on his Green’s ReshiZard and Stephane was on his Zoroark GX/Persian GX/Dewgong deck. I was testing favorably against the pair with my PikaRom list. The next day was just one where we woke up leisurely and tested some more games and then Stephane suggested that Naganadel GX be added to his deck, he said he had been talking to Joao of Brazil and Henry Brand of Australia and they had similar ideas to him. The two of them convened at our Airbnb and we had an all star cast ready to hammer out whatever deck we could find. Isaiah Bradner came to test with us as well, being good friends with Will Jenkins and myself. To combat the Stinger GX idea I began putting Max Potions into PikaRom and was content with the list by the end of the day. It was testing favorably against everything and it was my comfort pick by far, Pedro Torres showed up later in the night and wanted to try his Zoroark GX/Persian GX deck against us as well and my PikaRom was testing favorably into that. The next day we headed over to the venue area to check into our hotel and myself and Pedro would be staying with the New York guys leaving the Airbnb behind.
Wednesday was a strange day as everyone came in relaxed and ready to see each other and hang out but the Origins group had been here was already past the enjoying seeing everyone stage and was just ready to go home, or atleast I was. The New York room was divided in their own opinion of the metagame, strange for a group that had historically dominated the equivalent of US Nationals every year. Peter was dead set on his stall deck, Edwin on Malamar and some of the group on Big Blacephalon. I was sold on PikaRom and there was no way I’d be changing my mind…. or so I thought. Thursday morning was a day where I spent the majority of the day filming my Top Trainer video. Something I had wanted for a very long time in my career and somewhat of a dream come true. I was humbled and honestly had a lot of fun working with the entire crew, to be considered for a video alongside players that I look up to like Tord, Azul, Pram, Natalie and others was truly an honor. Thursday evening after all the filming had finished a friend of mine Chris Wilkinson asked if we could go back up to the room for some testing that only he could trust me with. He pulled out Baby Blacephalon and told me to Let Loose him until he didn’t want to play this deck anymore. Somehow I was losing and he was drawing out of every Let Loose. People began coming back to the room and Joey and Jon were the masterminds behind the deck. They also began playing sets against Xander and others and we were losing. We were losing far and often to the deck. I got scared, more scared than I’ve been in a long time. I don’t know why but I lot all confidence in myself and my deck. Maybe it was staying for almost 2 weeks in Ohio, maybe it was just something that had been building up inside me this whole time. I crumbled and decided to play Baby Blacephalon. The same night Justin came up to me saying Michael Bergerac had put Super Scoop Ups into his PikaRom in place where we were playing Max Potion and that also intrigued me as a concept. I had this perfectly good PikaRom deck and Stephane’s eventual IC winning list and I opted to play Baby Blacephalon, what the hell was wrong with me? Friday morning I wake up and still have time to alter my decision, I stick to my guns and for some strange reason sign my own death sentence.
Round 1 vs Pedro Eugenio Torres, I stare at the pairings on my phone screen and I just burst into laughter. Round 1 would be not only against one of the best players in the world but the man whom I had shared a bed with for the last two nights. I made my way to the table but didn’t sit down because I knew without a doubt in my mind that I would be going on stream Round 1. Pedro comes to the table laughing as well and shortly after the stream runner comes and gets us. After a pitiful display of my deck I was 0-1 super quickly. Did it feel good? Absolutely not but atleast I got my stream loss out of the way early.
After some disheartening losses to Let Loose after winning a long game 1 I found myself tying two sets I should have won and found myself at 3-2-2. The last two rounds found myself with matchups that were favorable once again and I was 5-2-2 to close out the day, netting some Championship Points notably towards my Latin America Stipend. I went out to a Taco Bar with my roomates for the weekend and joined in late after they had already been waiting. The night from here becomes a little hazy as there was alcohol involved, but I can say I spent time with a lot of people special to me that night and celebrated Jack (Purplecliffe’s) birthday with him. I went back to the room as Pedro was leaving for Day 2 and he was a little shook but happy to see me come home safe. A short nap and shower later I was back on my way to the venue for some more filming for the video, after that I laid down on a table and fell asleep. I watched the majority of Day 2 begin its natural conclusion and towards the end of Top 8 I left for a steak dinner with my roomates for the weekend. A little treat to celebrate our friendship and bond but through a common love for something. Sunday morning rolls around and the finals are in full swing, after a lackluster finals won by Stephane there was definitely regrets from the weekend. Frustration was the biggest emotion I felt throughout the weekend, mostly at myself because I was such a coward. I let my own fear and cowardice talk myself out of a deck that I believed was a perfect play for the event and into the arms of a deck that I couldn’t even outplay my opponents with. Monday rolls around and my flight is beckoning me, the warmth of my bed and the comfort of home was something I had forgotten. I got home and I couldn’t be happier to just do nothing and enjoy a reprieve from all the people I had spent time with, I love people and I love my friends but I was out of energy.
Preparing for the Big Show
Worlds was the next tournament on my docket and the final display of how your entire season will be defined. Legends are born and dreams are crushed equally. A tournament I had finally broken through to a placement last year but wanted more. Was I burnt out after everything? Yes. I didn’t want to touch Pokemon cards for a while. I skipped every post NAIC League Cup that would count towards this new season. They would have 10 masters and I still didn’t go, they could be less than an hour from my house and I still wouldn’t go. I found something I found much more new and fun for the time being, TFT. I had played DOTA 2’s AutoChess earlier in the Summer at my friends request and was instantly hooked, I just didn’t spend too much time on it before NAIC because of the constant traveling around, but shortly before NAIC ranked for TFT was released. A swarm of Pokemon players raced to see who could get the highest the fastest and all of us ended up around the Top 5% of players by the end of it. After returning from NAIC I spent many of my days just playing TFT and watching Netflix. They were boring times but I was simply burnt out completely, somewhat afraid of my own failures that I didn’t want to try and simply blame any lack of success on that. I had waited long enough and the official set list sure enough dropped. I had to shelve my desires to have fun and get serious once again.
I began my testing with Japanese lists because for the first time in history we had a rotation exclusive to the World Championships. I didn’t know how I wanted to approach deck building and the game but I knew I had to have an untainted approach to things before I was able to collaborate with others. I had kept an excel spreadsheet of all the games I played to practice until I left for the event itself, with notes and small changes I would make to each list and why. This was a really good method to self reflect but it was something that required a certain level of diligence from my end. I played close to 400 games in the weeks leading up to Worlds, that’s a lot of Pokemon. I was able to grasp the meta thoroughly in my opinion and understand the scope of some of the more popular decks that were to be expected. Xander and I were talking during this span and he was dead set on playing a deck revolving around Stinger GX. I had developed a liking for Green’s ReshiZard for Worlds and was having a lot of success testing it. Xander continued to refine his mind meld of a contraption and I was working on ReshiZard. The week of Worlds was a fun one as Washington DC was a short metro ride away from my home. Not an extravagant trip by any means but it was an opportunity to show my parents what I do and give them a glimpse of my life. Xander was one of the first to arrive at my house on Monday morning for our “bootcamp” followed by Tran and Micheal Catron who lived nearby. Nico Alabas, Michael Slutsky, Jose Marrero, Raymond Cipoletti and others made their way to my house as well in a timely manner. Raymond is an ex-Pokemon player who has made it big in Hearthstone, he’s notably on Team Panda Global. To me he’s an irreplaceable friend and kind of an idiot, but it was amazing catching up with him after so long. Our time was cut short as he had some heart complications and flew home early Wednesday morning, I didn’t even get to say goodbye but was glad he was alright and being taken care of. Justin Bokhari and Kian Amini came by along with Igor, Dean, Tye and some others just to test and say hi. After a few fun filled days of testing we headed into the city, the last two to arrive being Chip and Sam Chen. Sam had shown up with a Dark Box deck he thought was the play and after a sufficient beat down from my ReshiZard deck he had packed it up.
Before we head into the city one important detail that surrounded my deck, Martial Arts Dojo. I was playing on PTCGO ladder a few nights before everyone showed up and hit someone who was playing the mirror match but had high counts of Fighting Energy and Martial Arts Dojo. I got stomped and was pleasantly surprised at how good the combo is so I adopted it into my list. I had refined my list to the point where I could pull it off reliably. After a short metro ride into the city with everyone we headed straight for our hotel, the Embassy Suites just a block away from the venue. I was graced with a free upgrade for a room and we headed upstairs to get situated before going out for some lunch. After a hearty Potbelly meal we were deciding what to do with the rest of the evening, should we head to the store or just hang out until check in? Xander and I headed to test for a little while longer as he was playing in Day 1 of the tournament and was naturally nervous. We saw the long line for the store and decided that would be a terrible idea after a while, but made our way to check in and grabbed all of our swag. That night we had made plans to go see the Jonas Brothers in concert but Xander having to play the next day and the final hours of testing proving to be negative for him decided to go back to his hotel and lay down. As a last minute recruit we grabbed Connor Finton to fill his spot and the rest of us headed over to the concert hall to watch the trio of brothers who had made their comeback onto the scene. It was a blast from the past and just an overall fun evening, we headed back to the hotel right after and everyone made their own ways home. I decided it would be a good night to call it early and I did just that, getting some rest before my final day.
The main event kicked out without any snafus and I enjoyed the opening ceremony as I always do. After wishing Xander good luck, I got a call from my father telling me that he and my grandparents would be making their way to the venue shortly. I hung around waiting for them and about an hour later they showed up to the venue. I gave them a tour around the area and showed them where I would be playing the following day and my dad took the liberty of introducing himself to some members of the community and thanking them for taking care of me all the time. My grandparents headed back to the stairs because they had run out of energy and it was just me and my dad for a few minutes, we sat silently for a bit and then he told me that he’s proud of me and to keep doing my best. Keep my head on straight and focus, hard work is always rewarded and be confident in yourself, just not too overconfident. We embraced a hug where my father tries to crush me, something we’ve done to each other since I was little, and we say our goodbyes. The normal anxiousness I feel before tournaments is subsiding and I head to test with Regan and them to help them prepare. Regan is on a fossil based deck that he claims is the best thing for him, I show him why it isn’t but he still wants to play it. Xander joins us shortly after going 3-3 because he came face to face with 2 Gardeon decks, something neither of us anticipated heading into this tournament. He was going to be playing in the DC Open the next day with the same deck, just adding some counters to the matchups he didn’t expect to face today. I finished up my testing where I was and walked with Xander to Chinatown for some Cava, a comfort food for me before a big event. We ran into some other people there and we all exchanged pleasantries before wrapping up our food and heading back. I was determined to get an early night of sleep around 9:30 PM and wanted to make sure I was well rested for the next day, this obviously didn’t happen. Around then Sierra messaged me asking if I could help her understand the decklist I had sent her for the Open and to borrow some cards, I obliged and went down to the lobby and sat in one of those chairs just staring out a window for a while. She took her sweet time so I was people watching with my headphones in for nearly an hour, but was oddly at peace with myself and the tournament coming up. She showed up and I gave her the full rundown on the deck and why I chose to play certain cards, after the rundown we began chatting about life and just enjoying each other’s company. As the clock struck around 2 AM I realized I needed to sleep and so did she, we parted ways and I fell asleep with ease.
Alarm goes off. Today is the day. Today is my 4th time competing in the World Championships and I was just as nervous as the first time, just more experienced this time around. I had locked in my 60 card deck and I hopped into the shower, got dressed and chugged a cold Energy Drink, a ritual I had adopted to get my head into the zone. I walked over to the venue and it was gametime. Round 1 had me up against an autoloss, Dylan Gunn (USA) was playing Keldeo GX/Bronzong stall and I couldn’t deal with that. The first game he set up and I conceded quickly, the second one I was able to take a fortuitous one shot when he couldn’t set up at all. The third game was an opportunity, he used Steven’s Resolve on his first turn and I was able to Reset Stamp in tandem with a Welder on the first turn. He didn’t bench anything, he had to Steven’s again. I had a chance to win the game. As fate would have it however, my Power Plant was sitting by its lonesome in the Prize Cards and not in my deck. I signed the slip knowing that if my deck could handle something as weird as that I should be able to handle a lot of things in the field. The second round had me against a Japanese player playing PikaRom, both games he played directly into my Martial Arts Dojo Combination or an OHKO with Shrine of Punishment and I was able to walk out with a quick win. The third round had me facing Jit Min (Singapore) and his crazy Magnezone/Onix/Zeraora deck. It was a bunch of one prize attackers that is meant to do a lot of damage, unfortunately for him I was playing a lot of healing and was able to take the series by simply being faster than he was. He was playing a Stage 2 deck with 4 Fisherman so the deck definitely clunked out at certain points. Round 4 had me on stream against someone who has reoccurred in the blog frequently, Justin Bokhari (USA). You can watch the game here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQEGbHEdR_U&t=2s and I’ll say one thing about the way Game 3 ended, I went to play for the win. I could have played for a tie but it would have helped neither of us in the end. I knew what I had to do to win and my hand was set up perfectly to end the game if I had 2 more turns but things didn’t pan out that way. Maybe I should have scooped Game 1 much faster but it’s a hard thing to realize when you’re on stage and the pressure of the game and situation is getting to you. I ended up losing a hard fought game against a really close friend and I found myself at 2-2. There wasn’t any time to absorb the loss and regroup because the next round’s pairings had gone up and we had to run over to the tables. Justin and I talked the entire way there and even to today discuss the game, I think I would have had the game if I had a few more minutes and I don’t know where he stands on the issue but we both know it was a good game. The best I could hope for now is a Top 16 finish to match last year or get to 4-2 and take an Intentional Draw to secure Top 32, a placement no one can be upset about at the World Championships. The 5th round had me against a Korean opponent who was playing Ability ReshiZard, there was a natural language barrier surrounding our game so we communicated purely through actions. It was a strange yet calm game in my mind knowing that I had to play with enough clarity to show everything I was doing and to not mess up. The first game was my opponent opening a lone Dedenne GX and passing for the turn to which I responded with a two turn set up into a KO for the game. The second game was much more back and forth as I was able to pull off the Martial Arts Dojo combo on his ReshiZard effectively sealing up the game. When I played down my combo, my opponent picked it up and laughed jovially at it. He gave me a thumbs up and a high five after I executed it successfully and there was nothing else in that moment but mutual respect for each other as competitors and just two guys having fun over a game of Pokemon. Unfortunately for my opponent his tournament life was taken there by my hand. I was one game away from placing once again at the World Championships and I was already mentally exhausted. Playing any deck with Green’s Exploration gave the player so many choices and different lines to play the game. For someone like me who has touted aggression as my play style, a patient deck like this one was difficult to play. The sixth round had me against another Ability ReshiZard deck again, a matchup that I had seen more than I had expected in my initial testing. This time I was up against a competitor from Spain who had made his way through the first day of competition as well. The first game was similar to my bout against the Korean opponent, a dead draw from my opponent and he eventually was able to set up but it was too little too late. The key to this game was that he had not yet seen my Martial Arts Dojo Combo and I had verified that he didn’t play Reset Stamp. The second game had my opponent lead off with a Turn 1 Welder along with an attachment to his active ReshiZard. There was a Vulpix put down as well and he had every piece he needed to blow up my ReshiZard the following turn. I had fortunately opened my lone copy of Martial Arts Dojo in my hand and Volcanion in the active. I used Green’s Exploration to grab a copy of Energy Spinner and Welder for the following turn while putting 1 energy on a ReshiZard and 2 on the other in case of emergency. I knew that my opponent would need a Giant Hearth in play to find all his pieces so I would have a chance to find the Fire Energy I was lacking the following turn. My bet paid off as he powered up a 6 energy ReshiZard and brought up my 2 energy ReshiZard for the KO, and placed a Hearth into play. I used his Hearth to play my Welder and hit a Reset Stamp in the process, icing on the cake if you will. I execute my saving grace combo and cripple my opponent’s set up. Two turns later the game is over and I find myself at 4-2. I breathe a sigh of relief and my body is ready to give out under me. I know it’s a bit too early to relax because I still have to make sure that I can ID safely before anything else can happen. I do the math and there are 33 potential 4-2-1s or better, the odds being way better than last year that I am not the one who misses. I sit across from French competitor Medhi, who you may remember from the Shedinja deck in Berlin, and we agree to ID. We both let out a sigh of relief as the tournament is incredibly stressful and we go watch the remainder of the games. Frustrated faces leaving the table, smiles on some faces who know they’ve achieved something they’ve wanted for a while.
A large part of my sanity being kept in check was due to some extremely close friends of mine from my childhood coming to the event. These guys that I’ve known since we were all 13 years old decided to come to the event to cheer me on and check out the atmosphere and it was calming having my friends who don’t treat me any differently than I am. They don’t put me on a pedestal and they’re comfortable around me to make stupid jokes that’ll cheer me up. I’m pacing back and forth until final standings go up because I’m unaware that one of the games ended in a tie creating a locked Top 32 situation. A stressfully long ruling at a table that doesn’t matter for any prizing but only for person pride has me agitated and ready to rip my own hair out. Final Standings go up, I’m scrolling down the list of names and the further I go the harder it gets to breathe, until finally I see my name. 30th Place. I let out a triumphant “Let’s Go!” and hug the people around me, Pedro with another Top 32 embraces me first. I share a hug with Riley knowing that he felt the same way that I did in that moment, relieved and validated. Top 32 isn’t winning the event but it’s something to write home about. It is a mark that you’ve still performed amongst the best of the best and have something to take home with you, and a lot of pride on your chest along the way. I run over to Xander and Nathalia who are waiting for me to report back to them and I have a grin on my face. We have a family hug of sorts and then I head over to get my prizing, Xander has been reporting to me all day on his experience in the Open and he finishes off the first day with a respectable 6-0-1 record. What now? The venue began clearing out quickly and the lively atmosphere had just a few people left over in it, staff cleaning up and some straggling players like ourselves. Everyone had made their own dinner plans, I wanted to spend some time with my friends who had come all this way to support me.
I headed back to the room and admired the brand new Top 32 bag I had acquired, my friends taking my key and heading to happy hour at the Embassy while I do my decklist picture and take a minute to just absorb all the events of the day. Xander and Michael Slutsky joined me and my friends for dinner, we headed to Chinatown for some famed ramen at Daikaya. After a nearly two hour wait where we headed to a rooftop bar next door for some drinks and just chatting with everyone we enjoyed a hearty meal. My friends were getting ready to head out as the last metro of the day was coming up shortly. I asked Xander what he wanted to do and he just wanted to go back and chill at his room, Sierra and Sam had messaged me asking if I was coming to the Worlds party being held a bar nearby. Ironically enough it was a bar that I had gone to with Mike Fouchet in an effort to survey the area beforehand and I had enjoyed it so I was game. Xander being 18 decided to bow out and head back to his room to prepare for his final two round the next day morning and I took my friends with me for the journey. After entering I was greeted by a lot of familiar faces and just a lot of good people having a good time. After a short while my friends had to head back because it was almost time for the final train and I thanked them for coming out and being there, it was one of the most amazing moments in my life having my two worlds collide. I headed back in and spent some more time with everyone, chatting up a bunch of different groups and just enjoying the atmosphere. I wasn’t in the mood to drink because of how long the day had felt and after a short while it looked like the party was shifting gears. I stepped outside with Sam and Slutsky to head back and see what everyone else was upto. Sierra joined us on the walk back to the hotel area, we chatted the entire walk back and then Slutsky headed up to the room to get an early night. Sam hung around for a little while longer and then headed up himself. I stayed for another hour or so chatting with Sierra and she headed back to her hotel to get some rest as well. I headed upstairs and was in the middle of getting ready for bed when I get a message from Jose Marrero asking me to come get him from the bar. I walked back to the party for one last hurrah with everyone as the lights came on and they were ushering everyone out. I grabbed Jose who was visibly excited and over the moon. For someone who has been playing as long as Jose has, his first Top 32 at Worlds was his personal barrier he had been striving to break for a long time. To me it was a sense of proving I wasn’t a fluke the year before, to him it was a sense of validation that he could stand amongst the world’s best. We chatted for a while and Jose asked me multiple times if this was a dream or not and everytime I told him that we did it, we came and we conquered. After putting Jose to bed I went ahead and did the same, still soaking in the memories of that day and how proud of myself I was for going in with a deck I believed in and crushing the tournament.
Sunday was for the finals, I headed down to the venue early to cheer on a Junior from Florida that I had grown close with. I gave him some advice and he headed in to try and claim the throne, unfortunately he met with defeat. An incredibly accomplishment for little Isaac nonetheless. I watched the senior finals end swiftly and began playing old decks with the gang. Masters finals began and it saw my rival and friend from Australia Henry Brand take the tournament down with his creative, yet aggressive Mewtwo Tag Team deck. Xander ends up winning his pod in the open and we’re excited and cheer together, celebrate his success of his innovative deck.
We had some time after VGC concluded as well before the closing ceremonies began so we headed to grab some lunch and make our way back in a timely manner. After posing for the group picture by the stage (Jose is on my shoulders, see if you can spot us) I headed to my seat for the closing ceremonies. Something about the ceremonies always makes me emotional, seeing the newly crowned Champions take the stage inspires me. Seeing the recap video for the year fills me with nostalgia even if the event wasn’t completely over yet. Seeing the where are we going next year part fills me with excitement and a year of longing till the next World Championships. Watching the lights dim and the curtains fall on everything fills me with sadness, knowing its over. A few magical days that happen every year to unite the community before we have to do it all over again.
Dinner that night has a big group head to a local tavern and then we head back to spend the last night many of us have together for a while. A few parties are taking place in hotel rooms but after just spending time with everyone I call it an early night. The next morning a few of us head back to my house, well me and the people who’s cars are parked there. Chip hangs out for a short while but has a long drive home so he leaves shortly after, leaving me and Sam to spend the next day together. We just talk about life a little more and eventually our time together comes to an end as well as Sam heads home. For the first time in over a week it’s just me. A strange and unwelcome feeling to know that I would have to wait a few weeks to see my close friends again, a few months before I could travel internationally to see that crowd, and a whole year to participate in the World Championships again. I was suffering from Post Worlds Depression as they called it.
Real Life Stuff
Pokemon would have to take a step back for a little bit as I had to start applying seriously for jobs and figuring out how to be a real adult. Living in my parent’s basement rent free was nice but they had certain ground rules that needed to be followed. In addition to helping around the house I had to start actively looking for work or begin preparing to go back to school for a master’s program as soon as Worlds was over. The next month had me applying for work and heading to various interviews. Even the week that I planned on heading to Atlantic City I had to wrap up two separate interviews before hitting the road. Something stupid that I found out during the process was that voicemail boxes fill up. While at Worlds my dad called me to ask where he should be going to find me and I didn’t see the call the first time so it went to voicemail. My dad told me later that my box was full, something I didn’t know happened. Being in a basement constantly meant my cell service wasn’t the best so I don’t even know how many potential interviews I missed out on during this time period. Silly yet a costly mistake. I was slowly doing the things that I needed to do to finally feel like this was my home again after a few years removed and I was ready to tackle the world. League cups were a plenty but I couldn’t afford to head over to them with some interviews and job applications taking up my time on the weekends as well. Now that I’m much better off I can focus on the game again.
Conclusion
Now that I’ve sufficiently bored you all with my recap of the 2018-2019 season, I realized that I’ve put way too many words in this for any human to actually enjoy it. I’ll have to bore you all with the start to my 2019-2020 season in a short while but for now this is what I’ll leave you with. I wouldn’t be able to come back day after day to this community without you all, and for that I thank you. Content Creation is a passion of mine and I’ll try my best to return to that now that my work is adjusting a little more and I can figure out how my days will be going from now. All you see is the final results from me as a player but the hard work, the tears, the sacrifices are something that I want to talk about more and have them be more aware of. It might help you see me as more of a person for lack of better terms. As of now I am going for a Day 2 berth once again, this time on foreign soil. With Australia on the horizon I’ve been working hard and preparing well, hopefully I break through and surpass my goals that I set for myself and go further. I hope you enjoyed the read, or if you didn’t oh well you stuck around anyway for a reason, until next time.
I woke up the next morning and I decided before even heading to the venue that I would be playing Banette/Garbodor. Something about my gut was screaming to me that I should play it and I went with it. I was struggling with a last minute decision to cut the 4th Sycamore in favor of the 2nd Drampa GX but ultimately decided against it, Xander made the change on his end. I was finishing up writing my list with Ryan as someone comes up to us and tells us that me and Ryan are paired in the first round, to our shock and dismay.
Rahul's Ramblings 