The World Championships have come to a close and we’ve already set our sights on Philadelphia Regionals. We haven’t had any time to bask in the aftermath of the pinnacle of the year because the grind begins once again. This piece will be dedicated to talking about my NAIC performance, my Worlds Performance and the time I spent in between.
Heading into the North American Intercontinental Championships or NAIC, I felt no pressure on myself to achieve anything and the hunger that I had all year long had subsided temporarily. I went into NAIC knowing I would see some of my friends I hadn’t seen all year long and wanted to simply have fun that weekend. I prepared an adequate amount through coaching and simply playing games and settled on a Zoroark/Lycanroc deck that played Weakness Policies and Reverse Valleys inspired by Layton Rumble after his Top 8 finish at a Special Event in Auckland. I worked on the deck in the week leading up to NAIC and had settled on the deck after achieving the 50/50 match up against Buzzwole/Lycanroc that I wanted out of the testing. I had shared the list with a few close friends who all dismissed the deck in favor of the Buzzwole/Lycanroc deck that had been so dominant in the second half of the season. Only one other master piloted the deck with me, Ryan Antonucci. Ryan finished in the Top 8 of the main event, starting 12-1 and conceding his last two in a strategic move to attain the match up that he wanted in Top 8.
I began the tournament with a no show against Takeshi Tosa, a well renowned Japanese player who was there to do some trading and enjoy the event. I won my 2nd round against a Malamar deck but the next 3 rounds went poorly for me as I encountered some unfortunate luck on the draws and was eliminated from Day 2 contention by the end of the 5th round. After a tweet from Christopher Schemanske stating that I was locked into the 2nd day of the World Championships via Top 16, I dropped from the tournament to enjoy the city of Columbus in the company of my friends.
I went home and without any delay began testing for the World Championships. I knew what was at stake here and knew that I couldn’t do the same grind the following season due to it being my senior year in college, so I didn’t want to waste this opportunity I had worked so hard to attain. My testing began with Zoroark variants as a whole. I wanted to see if I could beat all other Zoroark variants with just one and somehow avoid the dreaded tie in that match up. Zoroark/Magcargo was the deck I decided to try out and I constructed a list with a ridiculous amount of one of tech cards. I wasn’t suffering too bad with consistency issues and found the deck to be extremely challenging to play but rewarding when it set up and I made the correct play. Within the first week of my testing I realized that Lysandre Prism Star would be an excellent addition to the deck and shore up a lot of the match ups. I was going pretty even against Rayquaza GX decks and the Zoroark Mirror felt favorable with the Prism Star and I was committed to playing this deck a few weeks out because nothing seemed to beat it.
The weekend of the ARG Invitational, everything changed. Jon Eng and Isaiah Bradner finished Second and First respectively with a list that was incredibly similar to the one I had been testing, maybe 3 cards off. I was taken aback by the similarity and was a little upset that, what I believed to be the perfect list was out there. I had traveled down to South Florida to spend a weekend with my good friends Franco Takahashi and Jose Marrero and have a mini bootcamp in preparation for the tournament. I lost every single game against Buzzwole/Lycanroc and felt incredibly demoralized in myself and the deck itself after those games. The trio of us gathered our belongings and headed to a League Challenge a few miles away the next morning. Jose went with the Zoroark Control deck as Magcargo wasn’t legal, Franco went with Buzzwole/Lycanroc and I piloted Sam Liggett’s Volcanion deck from NAIC. I suffered a hard loss to Franco in a very close series and finished 2-2 at the challenge, netting zero CP and understanding that I would not be playing Volcanion for this year’s World Championships. The drive back was turbulent as Florida summers are often accompanied by spontaneous torrential downpour and I just thought about everything and decided I needed to reevaluate my understanding of the format as a whole.
Once I was home I had a little over a week to figure things out. I had ordered my cards from the new set already, picking up Electrode GX, Articuno GX, and Banette GX just in case. I began discussing ideas with a few friends to see where they were at and everyone was just as lost as I was. No one had really given any merit to the Baby Buzz/Garb Shrine deck that placed well at ARG and I thought it looked bad and nothing like my style, so I wrote it off. I had two League Cups that I would have as final testing grounds for the tournament so I chose to use them to test two relatively unproven decks.
I went into Saturday with Zoroark/Gardevoir and was pleasantly surprised at how well I was doing against the field. Other than one insanely close game against Buzzwole/Lycanroc in Top 8 against Franco Takahashi, I swept almost everyone of my other games. The Top 4 series resulted in my swift loss to a Buzzwole/Lycanroc after getting slightly unlucky but couldn’t complain with that finish. The second day brought me in with Rayquaza GX paired with Puzzle of Time, an idea I wanted to try out but was unsure of the merit. I lost my first round to a Spread/Garbodor Shrine deck and I was already in the hole. I proceeded to beat 2 Zoroark/Garbodor decks, a Buzzwole/Lycanroc deck and a Lucario/Lycanroc deck before taking an intentional draw with a Zoroark/Garbodor deck that caused me to bubble out of the tournament at 12th place. I actually fell in love with the Rayquaza deck and wanted to keep putting time into it, but my semester had began. The last few days before the tournament were spent gathering my bearings in my academia and I had no time allotted for Pokemon. Wednesday night hits and I’m off to the airport with only one thing on my mind, Pokemon.
I run into the Hurleys at the airport and talk some decks and ideas with Tanner, who has Top 8’d the event in back to back years and managed to actually snag his 3rd this year as well. We test some games on the plane and I was beating Zoroark/Garbodor with Rayquaza GX and I was now on a Rayquaza high. It was awfully late by the time we got to the venue and I met up with Jose and headed to my hotel for some sleep. Thursday morning began with some delicious breakfast at Milk and Honey and I headed over to the venue to see who was up to what. I found Xander Pero and that was where everything went down the rabbit hole. Xander and I observed the Day 1 players and their plays and then took a quick trip to the store after helping our friends Alex Hill and Michael Slutsky finalize their plays. I purchased some pretty nifty things and spent close to $250 but I was enjoying myself and that was the main goal. I watched Xander beat ZoroGarb a few times with his Banette/Garb deck and it didn’t quite make sense to me. I hung out for a bit longer and then went back to my room to play some DC Deckbuilding and get some rest.
Friday morning rolls around and the opening ceremony is what I look forward to most about the World Championships. There are chills down my spine as the tournament starts and I wish all my friends luck in the first day and I meet up with Xander once again. We head to grab some breakfast before beginning our long day of testing that we had worked all year to attain. We began building the decks we wanted to try out and once Sam Chen and Ryan Sabelhaus joined us we began running the gauntlet. We found a nice business area and got permission to use it for a while and set up camp there. We had the two streams up on the computers and just kept playing games with some pizza on the way. Xander and I went a collective 0-6 against ZoroGarb with Banette that day and began to shy away from it as an option. Gardevoir/Sylveon and Baby Buzz Garb Shrine made their way onto the table before we decided to take a break and head down to the venue. After getting there we heard about the absurd amount of the Baby Buzz deck that had made it through Day 1 and I was scared of that deck, mostly because I didn’t quite understand it. We went back after picking up a few more testing partners and hammered out a ton of games. We tried Greninja as well but after a swift 0-4 against Buzzwole we packed that bad idea up again. After the testing had concluded I had settled on one of two options, Buzzwole/Lycanroc with a Zygarde EX tech or Xander’s Banette/Garbodor. I didn’t really have a reason to consider Banette besides that it beat the Baby Buzz deck, Rayquaza and BuzzRoc so it gave me confidence to just high roll on match ups. I went to my hotel that night and sleeved up both decks and went to bed at a responsible hour. 
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.
Round 1 vs Ryan Sabelhaus (60 Card Mirror) LL
Game 1
The first game was a disaster on all accounts as I struggled to set up and wasn’t able to get rid of Ryan’s early Big Wheel GX. I managed to whiff a Banette for two turns after a Sycamore was played in both those turns and I conceded this unwinnable game.
Game 2
The second game was worse than the first as I was left attacking with Drampa’s Righteous Edge for 20 damage every turn as he picked off all my Shuppet and Trubbishes. I lost this one very quickly as well and started my Worlds run at 0-1.
Round 2 vs Joey Gaffney (Buzz/Roc) WLL
Game 1
The first game was what I would call picture perfect. I was able to put his active Buzz GX at 180 damage on my 2nd turn and the following turn Guzma up his benched Buzz GX and take a double knockout using Shady Move. He scooped up the game right after.
Game 2
This game saw a Drampa start and disaster from there, I managed to stabilize and bring the game to a stalemate where I needed to two shot a Lycanroc GX for the game but ultimately my own greed cost me the game as Joey got the tools to KO my Lele that I had attacked with.
Game 3
The 3rd game brought an old friend to the limelight again, Drampa GX. This game was an actual disaster as I just never set up and Joey ran through me.
I felt despair as this is a match up that should be extremely favored and I managed to lose it. I was feeling the weight and pressure of the World Championships that many players feel and an 0-2 start wasn’t doing me any favors
Round 3 vs Peter Kica (Turbo Rayquaza GX) LWW
I’m going to switch to a more overall series summary format from here on out because the games became an emotional blur for the rest of the day for me. The first game Kica rolled me quickly but the 2nd game was looking to be the same. I had to N him to 1 and hope he didn’t hit an Energy or Blower and I needed a Blower off my N to 4 and I hit it and the stars aligned as we moved to a third game which I took decisively.
Round 4 vs Ian Robb (BuzzRoc) WW
This series went as the matchup dictates in an early Garbotoxin and using Banette to simply overrun my opponent and win the game. I was on the up and up and felt like a comeback was brewing, but most importantly I was having fun again.
Round 5 vs Tyler Ninomura (Baby Buzz Garb Shrine) WW
This was the matchup I wanted the whole day. As I had theorized it I simply went aggressive with the Banette and dodged the 4 prize sledge hammer turn carefully with Shady Move and had a Toxin up to overrun the board.
Round 6 vs Kian Amini (BuzzRoc) WW
This was my closest series of the day despite the 2-0 scoreline. Kian played it masterfully using the Zygarde EX in his deck as well as double Lycanroc to his advantage, but both games I had to N him low and just hope he couldn’t close it out and that’s exactly what happened.
Round 7 vs Michael Catron (BuzzRoc) WW
The first game came down to Michael’s Swing Around flips as he hit a double tails to miss a crucial KO on a Lele that would have put him in a very strong lead, his Buzzwole GX cleaned it up later but it was a turn too late. The second game was picture perfect for me as I simply set up the board perfectly and ran through Michael.
The final standings went up and I was jumping for joy as I finished 13th overall at this year’s World Championships after starting 0-2. I couldn’t believe what had happened, it was validation for my hard work all year round. I had achieved a huge goal that I had set out to do and this following year my goals are set higher.
I had to leave for the airport early in the morning around 4 AM and I remember waiting outside for my Uber and taking a deep breath of air. It was all over in a flash, the whole year had led up to this weekend and it was over before I even knew it. I would have to wait a whole year to do it over again, but this time in Washington DC, an area I was born and raised in.
This next season for me is one focused on my academia. I loved seeing all the people this season on the circuit and the amazing people I met all year and spent time with. The European players whom I am incredibly fond of, the Brazilian players who I talk to on a daily basis now, the Oceania players whom I never would’ve had a chance to meet without the year I’ve had. I will more than likely be foregoing the first two ICs of the season, but will do my best to make it to Germany. I will try and make a late season push for Top 16 depending on how the early part of my season goes. I will attempt to make it out to whatever tournaments I can based on my school schedule.
From the bottom of my heart, I want to thank you all for this amazing year. Every single person who I have met, befriended, that has cheered me on from home, told me they’re cheering me on in person or that enjoys my content. I couldn’t do it without you guys, the trail isn’t easy and having the support and strength of each and everyone of you is what keeps me going. I came because I love the game and I’ve stayed because I love the community.
See you all in Oaks, PA for the start of the 2018-2019 season! Until next time ❤ Rahul
Rahul's Ramblings 