1 point short of making Worlds Day 2 - My Second Worlds Experience (Worlds 2026)

Worlds 2026

 It's been a week or since the 2026 Pokémon World Championships concluded and I got to participate in it for the 2nd time, my previous attempt was back in 2023 when I finished a respectable record of 5-3 so obviously I wanted to do one better, and get into Day 2 of Worlds this time around. And if you read the title of this entry, then you can kind of guess what happened.

Deck choices

For this Worlds, I wasn't too sure what I wanted to play. Charizard ex got me my invite but it was rotated and post rotation, I played Raging Bolt ex for 3 UBLs and the MBL, but I didn't too that well in any of them so I wasn't sure if I should stick with it. So I started testing many different options.

The decks I tested the most and was seriously considering:

• Dragapult ex
• Hammer build
• with Dusknoir
• with Blaziken ex
• with Dudunsparce
• with Toucannon
• Slowking
• Basic Box
• Ogerpon Box (Prism Basic Box)
• Raging Bolt ex/Teal Mask Ogerpon ex
• Lillie's Clefairy ex
• N's Zoroark ex
• Mega Excadrill ex
• Mega Lopunny ex/Dudunsparce
• Greninja ex/Dusknoir

A month out, my initial ranking would have been this from my self testing I had done:

1. Basic Box (Prism Basic Box)
2. Raging Bolt ex/Teal Mask Ogerpon ex
3. Slowking
4. Dragapult ex/Blaziken ex
5. Mega Excadrill ex

Let's just explain the last few ones, Zoroark I just felt I didn't have enough experience and game time to bring it to the biggest event of the year so even though I liked the Tome build, I couldn't go with that just due to lack of experience with the deck. Excadrill was my "in case of emergecy brake glass" deck, I was still suffering from some health issue leading up to Worlds so if it was still bad, I would have just sent Excadrill, thankfully everything cleared up as I was in Japan just before heading off to San Francisco. 

Lopunny and Greninja were just rouge choices I had played a lot of, but just didn't feel confident enough to bring either. I do like both deck but just didn't think they'd get me there. Speaking of rouges, I did know of the Malaysian Tox Box deck for about 2 months, but as I didn't play much with it, I chose not to go for it.

Slowking was at one point my initial choice to play for Worlds, my spreadsheet said it was the best play and it I had played it at 3 local events, went 3-0 in all of them so I thought....maybe that's the one. But something changed as I was in Japan, the deck just started not doing well and I had my doubts with it and decided to go with the comfort choice of Raging Bolt.

As for Dragapult, I know it's the deck to play but I had a very simple reason for not playing it to Worlds. There's gonna be 100+ players better than me in that room, and they know the Pult mirror better than me so I don't hold any advantages there. And I didn't play Pult much this season either so that just felt like the wrong choice to me. So Bolt it was, it had a good Pult matchup and can keep up with almost every deck not named Alakazam and Festival Lead which I didn't think would show up in big numbers so why not go with that choice (I was clearly wrong when it came to Alakazam).

Deck List

Before showing off the list I played, I wanted to share the ones I was testing initially. But first up is not Raging Bolt, but one I was initially thinking I would end up playing. It's the one that won the Japan Championships and I played it to the Pokemon World Cup with Team Singapore, winning 3 of my 4 matches, only losing to Jackson Ford in a very close game too. My main issue of the deck was that it couldn't do enough damage to stuff like Mega Excadrill ex and it was everywhere before Worlds, which made me think it was going to be a popular choice (it wasn't but I still did hit 2 of them in the latter rounds).

The list I played for Pokemon World Cup

The first was one I had seen doing well in so many online events which got me back into testing Raging Bolt in the first place, this was from Jose Roberto Rueda. Big shoutout to him for doing so well and also him and Juan Sebastian Caballero had a well written Bolt guide on Metafy, give it a look!

The first list

I tested with this the most and even won an online tournament with this exact 60 and it kinda made up my mind that day that this was likely the one for me to go with. 

Then I got a message from Harpr who was also testing Raging Bolt along with the South African players and wanted to share notes about it and I was more than happy to since no-one else from the Singapore contingent apart from Jeremy and Kaizer were considering Bolt so I didn't really have anyone else to talk about the deck with. He too had made a Metafy guide on Bolt, another one I would consider checking out.

I played his list with a few changes (the main being a 2-2 Lighting Fighting energy to see if the list could open up a space for some techs) to a local bo3 event in Japan at Ragnarok Gaming as they were hosting a test event for those going to Worlds and well....I am too so why not! 

Harpr's list

I ended up finishing 1st out of 14 players and I got to play a friendly bo3 set with former world champion himself Takuto Itagaki and also won that set which gave me more confidence going into Worlds. Takuto was also nice enough to give me some suggestions on what I should change from the list, mostly going for Unfair Stamp over Prime Catcher and some tech cards I should keep or change.

A day before Worlds, my fellow SG Raging Bolt player Kaizer shared me his list and it was something similar to what I played for the Master Ball League with Koraidon and Raging Bolt in the list as single prize attackers. It was probably better into stuff like Festival Lead and Alakazam but because I had been testing the first list the most, I wanted to keep with that and stick with what I'm comfortable with and not change something last minute.

Kaizer's list

As for the final list, here it is:

My list for Worlds 2026

I did make some changes in the end:

• Iron Leaves ex for Switch
• The idea was I had more outs to draw into an Iron Leaves ex to counter Sob lock plays than I would had I played Switch since I had Cyrano and Ultra Ball to get Iron Leaves as well
• The cost was if my bench is full, I wouldn't be able to get out of Sob lock
• Jamming Tower for the 4th Area Zero Underdepths
• This one had been weighing in my mind for the longest time. I knew of Excadrill players and also a few Pult players likely going for Hero's Cape and I wanted some outs to it. And I knew Basic Box were likely to depend on Lillie's Pearl. I also wanted out to silly stuff like Handheld Fand, Lucky Helmet and Binding Mochi
• It can also act as a pseudo Chien Pao to clear out my bench of unwanted bench sitters

On hindsight, I should have gotten rid of Iron Crown ex, it turned out to be the most useless card in my deck. It's there for Alakazam and Festival Lead and even in testing, I never got to pull off the Turn 2 attack any time. Probably a Bloodmoon Ursaluna ex as a late game closer or the 3rd Boss's Orders.

Late into Thursday I also started toying with the idea of switching my 2nd Raging Bolt into a 2nd Lillie's Clefairy in case the field was really 50% Pults, but because I hadn't tested it out much, I stuck with it. I had no idea most of the Bolt players had the same idea and all went for the 2nd Clefairy. But yeah that's the list I went with.

Pokémon World Championships 2026 - Day 1

Round 1 vs Nobuto Hongo (Slowking)

• G1 I go 2nd L
• G2 I go 1st W
• G3 I go 2nd W

He looked very nervous going into the first round and as I spoke to him, I found out it was his first WCS so I told him not to worry, just have fun and do your best. Little did he know, I was also very nervous. (I also didn't realize he won the first Champions League of last season too!)

Back in 2023, I went into that event quite calm, no nerves, nothing. But this was different, I was more nervous than I usually was. To the point I finished my drink even before the first game ended! 

And that first game was just so bad. I had forgotten to bench Mega Kangaskhan ex for some reason and he punished me by getting prime catcher off his Lille and ultra ball for the attacker and got Wondrous Patch too. Then I forgot I had no Latias on board and tried to retreat by Khan, whoops. So I scooped game 1.

Game 2 he bricked, he just had no attackers going so I was able to build up the Wellspring + Boss to KO both Slowpokes that came down on the field and he never recovered. 

Game 3 was actually looking really bad, he got the KO on my Khan and since I knew he could easily do that, I took the risk to set up two Khans to attack. My hail marry move was to set up Unfair Stamp through Cipher and hope he would struggle from it, take the one prize and hope he had no response (I had done a Wellspring KO before then to take the first 2 prizes) and now all I needed was boss to KO his Mega Khan. 

He drew pass and I started to set up my Rag Bolt to attack his Khan while retreating into Chien Pao to make it harder for him to take his final 3 prizes. He took out the CPao but I had everything I needed to boss KO his Khan with Bolt.

1-0 up, good start so far but I was still feeling nervous.

Me playing in Round 1

R2 vs Jeremy Castro (Dragapult ex)

• G1 I go 1st L
• G2 I go 1st W
• G3 I go 2nd W

Next up was a name I recognised, because I did remember Jeremy had made Day 2 at both EUIC and NAIC, especially the latter just months ago with Dragapult so I've got someone who has a proven track record with his deck.

Game 1 ended in turn 1 on his turn because my turn 1 was attach a grass energy on TM Ogerpon and pass but he had ultra ball for Meowth to get Crispin to set up Moltres for the KO. The problem is, I had an Iron Crown ex I could have started in hand so that was a mistake. 

Game 2 he just could not set up any Drakloaks at all, finding his first one after 4 turns! Game 3 was much more even, his hammer flips were mostly tails so that helped. I managed to go with the usual game plan, Khan takes first two, Clefairy took the next two and thankfully he didn’t disrupt my hand as I had stretcher and Crispin to KO his 2nd Pult.

R3 vs Kohei Kurita (Dragapult ex/Dusknoir)

• G1 I go 2nd W
• G2 I go 2nd L
• G3 I go 1st W

For once I won a game 1 and it was a quick one as he struggled to set up and scooped after the 3rd turn as I had taken 3 prizes already. Game 2 actually didn’t start until 7 minutes later, as we got deck checked and guess who the judge was? Yes my own friend and fellow SGer Charmaine haha! (Why you always bully me lol)

The judge call did actually calm me down funnily enough so I wasn’t feeling so nervous anymore but Game 2 was terrible, I had a dead hand and just couldn’t set up at all and his Dusk bombs did a big number on me. Game 3, just like the other Pult game, went to plan! 2 prizes up, KO Pult with Bolt and last KO with Clefairy. 3-0 start at Worlds, I'm feeling good right now. Then I see my pairing for the next round...

Uh-oh

R4 vs Diego Cassiraga (Alakazam)

• G1 I go 2nd W
• G2 I go 2nd L
• G3 I go 1st L

Remember when I said I wasn’t feeling nervous anymore? Oh it came back in a big way when I saw who I got paired with for Round 4. None other than the 2017 World Champion Diego Cassiraga! Nervous but also excited, now I get to see how I’d stack up against one of the greats in the game.

And then he flipped over Abra and I thought “oh god….this is bad”, this was one of the matchups I was hoping not to hit. It’s a near autoloss. I say that even though I did win game 1 thanks to a well timed Sob on his Fez. I was trying to set up KO on it and one of his Kadabras to deny him the draw but one of his last Dudunsparce got him the Shaymin. He put it down and I went after the Shaymin to KO both with boss and he scooped as I was down to 2 prizes with no Khans on board thanks to CPao.

Don’t remember much of game 2 but his Genesect didn’t come down early so I got the stamp off this time but he drew out of it and i couldn’t keep up with him.

Game 3 just reminded me why he’s a World Champion and I’m just a nobody. I went first, started Khan but no energies in hand and passed. So he essentially got to start first.

I did get to a point where I did get attacks going off and the turn I was going to take my 2nd prize, my top deck was unfair stamp, and I thought to myself, oh this could be good since he has to attack next turn. His next turn, he draws some cards and uses Eri and immediately throws my Stamp away haha. I looked at him, he looked at me and we both knew that was game. 

He was a fierce competitor for sure, in game he was ruthless, scary even I’d say. But before the game and after the game, he was just the nicest guy ever, even told me “hey I follow you on Twitter” and we had a nice chat before our game. That’s probably why he’s a World Champion after all. I learned so much just from that set against him, and even though I lost, I still felt good. I was bummed for him when he lost in finals.

Also this game kinda made me realise…maybe I made a mistake by having Iron Crowns in the deck as it was useless in this one matchup I needed it the most.

R5 vs Hayden Matthews (N's Zoroark ex) 

• G1 I go 1st W
• G2 I go 2nd L
• G3 I go 1st W

Another name I recognized only because we’ve played each other in online tournaments a number of times! Another lovely guy to play against, he was super friendly the whole way. 

He whiffed the first two prize KO in the game which meant I had the advantage as I took two single prizes down with Khan, followed by Iron Leaves and then finally Teal Mask Ogerpon.

2nd game he took the first two prize KO and I just could not catch back up in the prize race and scooped as I saw the writing on the wall after the 3rd and 4th prizes since he still had two more bosses to work with. My Hail Mary of the Stamp didn’t work either.

3rd game was a bit similar to the first but the two prizes came from Wellspring which was my ideal attacker. His red card did make it a bit sketchy for me but I got a bit lucky to draw into the pieces I needed for TM Ogerpon to take the final KO.

R6 vs Emiliano Zapata (Mega Excadrill ex)

• G1 I go 1st W
• G2 I go 1st L
• G3 I go 1st L

So the funny story is I didn’t even realise Emiliano was on stream the round before this, whoops. But it was my first Excadrill matchup of the day. Game 1 came down to the wire, it took us a long while haha! He had his Excadrill set up with Cape but thankfully I had Jamming Tower in the list as my last minute tech choice and it won me that game. 

G2 wasn’t looking good for me, he got the ideal setup and took out my Khan very quickly. We traded prizes back and forth, I even KOed his Metagross with my Latias ex! It came down to a point where I just could not draw the pieces to get a Raging Bolt attack going and had to gamble on Mega Khan hitting 3 heads from Rapid-Fire Combo. I got two heads, but not the third for the KO and the win so I lost that one.

G3 was just sad, I started with just a Teal Mask Ogerpon so I was already quite behind despite going first. I managed to claw myself back into the game, and I put myself in a position to win off a boss, I just needed him to not draw into 4 energies off his 3 Metangs for game, and since he had used Recycler the turn before, it was very likely he would get it and he did, winning on Turn 2 of overtime. Had he missed, I had boss waiting in hand for game.

That was a painful loss to take because I felt I should have won that, having tested that matchup a lot going into this event. I knew what I was supposed to do and just couldn't draw well enough to get me there. 4-2, now I needed to win two more games to me in a better spot for Day 2 at Worlds.

R7 vs Isaiah Cheville (Mega Excadrill ex)

• G1 I go 1st W
• G2 I go 1st W

My heart sank a bit when the pairings went up because I knew the next two games were must win games.....but against my own friend Zaya???? I was not expecting a friendly fire this late on in the event.

This was my only 2 game set of the entire day and unfortunately Zaya had poor setups in both games. G1 I managed to get Wellspring going very quickly and Zaya scooped to go to G2. Raging Bolt pulled it's weight for the next game. I did get some favorable draws this time around, unlike the last round. 

5-2, and I just need one point to make Day 2, aka an intentional draw (ID). The issue is, I've been down this road, I took the ID at Melbourne Regional and screwed myself of any chance of doing well, so I already knew I can't do that again. I had a few friends come up to me to talk about the last round, all agreeing that I should fight for the win unless I hit an Alakazam or Festival Lead, then I should just take the ID since both of them were unwinnable matchups.

R8 vs Fabio Battistella (Basic Box)

• G1 I go 1st W
• G2 I go 1st L
• G3 I go 2nd L

Pairings went up and I recognized this name from doing all my reports for Pokestats, I knew how good Fabio is so this was always going to be a tough round. He offered the ID to me right away (I had no idea at this point that he had just gone from 5-0 to 5-2 so I kinda understood why he wanted the ID), but I told him I couldn't go for that, I had to give myself the best shot of doing well for the event and going into Day 2 at 5-2-1 would kill my hopes of making top cut. Sure I can still earn some money but that's not really my aim, I'm aiming higher than that. Go big or die trying right?

Game 1 went perfectly, I kept the Jamming Tower tech hidden until I took the 3rd and 4th prizes and all I needed was a boss to clean up the game. Game 2 I drew poorly and never came back from his Unfair Stamp, he had boss for game in the end when I was just about to make a comeback.

Before Game 3 started Fabio once again offered the ID, and once again I had to reject it. But I was feeling super nervous now, this one game will decide whether I will get to play in Day 2 of the World Championships for the first time or be a spectator for tomorrow, I've come too far not to at least give it a try. My first mistake was probably choosing to go 2nd, I had noticed he kept wanting to go 2nd so I thought I should take that option away from him.

Then came the big misplay, I had my Mega Khan set up to KO either his Clefairy or Meowth. I was holding on to Jamming Tower in my hand, my initial instinct was, just put it down, take the KO on Clefairy and find a way to go around the 2nd Pearl (either KO Clefairy and Khan or double Boss for game). And then a second thought came to mind....what if I just Boss KO Meowth first, save the Tower for the KO later on and give myself to close up the game with just 2 prizes left. 

What I should have done is just put down Jamming Tower and KO his attacker, and find my way to get the last 4 prizes. I should have also been aware that he has an easy way to search out Unfair Stamp, in the previous two games he went aggressive with Meowth for Cipher to always get Stamp so that should have been on my mind since he'd need to build up another attacker. So I don't know what got to me to boss up the Meowth instead, that was the wrong move that pretty much killed my game I think.

As I suspected, he did get Stamp off and I drew two unplayable cards out of it. Clefairy hit my Khan, draw for turn, another unplayable card. Draw 2 more cards from Run Errand, and it was two Area Zeros, aka still more unplayable cards (my hand if I remember correctly was 2 Area Zeros, Iron Leaves, E-Switch and Mega Khan). 

It felt someone somewhere was punishing me for that bad misplay, that was karma for misplaying the turn before. I did manage to put myself within two prizes of winning the game but I knew hoping he wouldn't draw a boss for game was a tall task. And sure enough he had it. 

5-3, I took the gamble to play it out and it failed on me and I only have myself to blame for that. But I wasn't the only one playing out their games, to my right was the one and only Tord Reklev playing it out and unfortunately he too lost. The table next to me had Sander Wojcik as well, and he too lost. 

And just like my first Worlds, the 3 players who beat me all made it into Day 2, but this time there was a 4th as Kohei also made Day 2. In fact, all of my opponents apart from my first opponent won 5 games, so yeah those were some tough players I had to go through so I hope my 5-3 score meant something after seeing these scores at the very least.

Reflections

It just hurts to miss Day 2 by just one point this time, and sure, I could have just IDed and get into Day 2 if that was my ultimate aim, but my aim was higher than that, I wanted to push for a top cut finish because I felt I could do it. Maybe unrealistic but I had put so much time into this deck, I thought I should at least give myself the chance to go for glory and not settle for just being in it for the sake of it.

What hurt more was the misplay and two people close to me thought it was perhaps my lack of playing in such high-stakes game that led to me making the misplay in game 3 of Round 8, to which I can agree with them. It did get me and I got nervous and made the wrong choice when I should have stayed calmed and followed my initial instinct of KOing the Clefairy with the Jamming Tower (great tech choice btw).

It's a bit funny that I got the same exact score as I did in 2023 (5-3 both times) but both were completely different. The first time I was confident in my deck but not in my skills as a player and that got me. Well much more of the same this time around but a little different too, less confidence with my deck but more with myself as a player and I could see improvements already from these 3 years. 

I still have so much more to improve on as a player, and at least now I know I can make it to Day 2 of the World Championships. I just need to keep doing better, keep improving, be more alert to situations in the game, adapt when things are starting to go awry, just trust myself, make the correct deck or tech choices and just keep calm. The last part can be a bit hard for someone like me as I get nervous very easily and I can get upset and let it get to me when things aren't going well, I just need to find a way to fix that.

And I probably need to learn how to make good deck choices too. We all know Dragapult was the best choice, and I probably should have played it. There were other things I could have played too and I knew I my heart Raging Bolt probably wasn’t the best choice but it was my comfort pick. Which leads me to my biggest issue…

Confidence. People that know me know I’m not a very confident person. I’ve struggled with it ever since I was a kid, be it in school, at work, in the army, or gaming, I don’t know what it is, but I always end up second guessing myself under pressure when I know what I’m supposed to do. 

Prime example being that misplay in Game 3 of Round 8 when I knew the right play was to KO Clefairy with Jamming Tower, I just don’t know why I went the other direction. This is probably the hardest thing for me to work on. It’s all a work in progress if I ever want to compete at the top tables like the best players in the world tend to do on a consistent basis.

Top tables at Worlds in Round 11

The Worlds Experience!

Now for some fun.

So my trip actually started the week before Worlds, I flew to Tokyo for about 6 days, got some practice in, played some locals, wrote down my matchup concepts and some notes, watched other pro players playing the same deck and that was my prep, other than just having fun walking around. 

I flew off to San Francisco on Sunday, but went to Sacramento first to see my family and spend the night with them, which I could have done more days. Stayed at my cousin’s place at Walnut Creek for the next few days which was about a 40 minute train ride on the BART, didn’t find it that bad.

Tuesday - Checking out the venue

Went to see the venue on Tuesday and wow the decorations looked amazing. Bumped into the lovely Joe and Emily from Omnipoke, lovely people! Went to check out the badge pickup place and saw Tord walk past me and I was like….”oh shit it’s real now haha”. There were many familiar faces but I was too nervous/shy to say hi to any of them. Luckily Natalie saw me and calmed my nerves down for the event. Always great talking to her.

The venue

Wednesday - Badge Pickup/Play Testing

We did our badge pickup on Wednesday with the Singapore crew, it was way more smoother than the last one in Japan and from what I heard a vast improvement from Anaheim so kudos to the team.

I got my last few play testing games in today as well, tested with Yu Xian on straight Pult and Kai on Pult Blaziken, always a pleasure to get to test with top players from around the world. Even though I lost I learnt a thing or two or what to do in that matchup.

At this point the Singapore crew were mostly on Dragapult apart from me and Kaizer (Raging Bolt) and Terry (Excadrill). The Malaysian duo of Kai Jian and Brendan joined us in testing where I finally got to see their Tox Box deck in action and it looked really decent, I knew those two had been testing that for months so kudos to them. 

Thursday - The Pokemon Center

And now for the big one….as in big damage to all of our wallets. I didn’t think I would spend a lot of money and I wasn’t picking a lot of stuff up until I saw the San Francisco line of merch and up they got me. There were too many nice things to buy so let’s see if I can remember what I got: 

• Double deck boxes in all 3 versions
• Playmat for the XP and San Fran version (I don’t know why I didn’t pick up the Worlds one, I had it and put it back at some point)
• Sleeves for all 3 versions
• Dice box for all 3 versions
• Worlds binder
• San Fran Worlds bottle
• Some fancy Charizard shirt from Europe
• The XP Zard shirt
• The Charmander and Geodude Lego set
• San Fran keychain (I have loads of keychains featuring San Francisco btw haha)
• Ascended Heroes booster bundle (before you people ask, yes I know I should have picked up the booster box too, that’s a misplay on my part, I didn’t realise how much it was worth)
• Some random Charmander sticker set 

And I think the total damage was $514 USD. Way more than I expected but in a way, I was kinda happy to see 500, I feared it might have been 700 or something like that.

This SF line looked sick

On the way back to the hotel, while seeing the black market alongside the badge pickup area, I finally met up with my friend Marco Cifuentes, I think I spend the most time chatting with him than anymore I met at Worlds, what a lovely fella and a great player too. I played him loads of times during the pandemic and I’m so happy to see him become the top player I knew from that time. 

I also got to meet Sunny, the only other Singh playing at Worlds so it was cool to have another one repping our people at the biggest stage and I’m so happy for his success this season and he got Top 64 too! I wished I had taken a photo with him though, I usually don’t ask people for it and the only other one I too was with Marco and Azul.

Thursday night we were all in Yu Xian’s room helping to check each other’s 60 cards to make sure we don’t get a silly penalty for no reason. Shauna was the latest to jump off the Pult train and back to her Grimm routes. 

Also I had a hard time finding locals to play during my stay there which was a bit weird. The 2 I had picked out in Concord and Berkeley (both were close to me when I was staying at my cousin's place in Walnut Creek) either cancelled or switched to a different format and the ones in downtown SF was either full or too expensive for my liking.

Pokemon Center line

Friday - Worlds Day 1

I didn’t see much, I was busy playing. I was just in the Worlds hall for pretty much the whole day, and anytime I had free time in between games, I was either chatting to my Singaporean peeps, just walking around or saying hello to some friends like Julius, Alex, Marco and also Vini who I finally met for the first time, I've known him since the pandemic days too.

Saturday - Exploring XP

I did think about joining the Open but I was having a bad headache after Friday I thought, I should sit that one out and just enjoy the experience of Pokémon XP. Plus my cousins were coming down so I had a reason not to play.

The XP venue was HUGE! There was so much to see and loads of stuff on display and even after 3 days, I don’t think I saw all of it honestly. 

As a lifelong LEGO fan, the LEGO section was cool to see, especially all the upcoming sets. I still have not seen one in Singapore so I’m not sure how my Pokémon LEGO collection will grow.

The OG trio in Lego

The art of Pokémon TCG card section was a nice touch, especially the Yuka Morii displays with all the clay Pokémon in those cards too. Too bad the other stuff had lines to get into them which I'll talk about soon.

I didn’t get to see much of the Funko or Switch areas but they were massive. I didn't see much of what was happening on the stage area but it was huge and streamed on Youtube at least. The biggest letdown for me was not being able to see the 30th celebration display or the Pokémon Museum (something I really wanted to check out), because the lines for both were always too long! Same for the Lego stuff. Same for the Switch stuff. Same for the Funko stuff. Long story short, WAY TOO MANY LINES! 

Trubbish!

I thankfully did not take part in the stamp rally, I heard it was a complete mess and it didn’t let players go into the venue which would have pissed me off. So I was happy to hear it got canceled on Sunday haha. I didn't actually get to see the trade zone area so I had no idea how hectic it was, I remember it was super hectic back in Yokohama. The night market at the Marriott hotel was also hectic, that was an experience for sure.

Rayquaza Road was amazing, there was so much going on around it, especially the photo opps with the decorations all around, and of course the Rayquaza cable car haha!

I didn't get to check out what was happening at Buena Gardens which was a bit sad, walked past it on Saturday and Sunday. Looked nice though but didn't see what else was going on there.

Overall I thought XP was fine, lots of cool stuff to check out as Pokémon fans like myself but the long wait queues for just about anything was my biggest issue. I don't have time to stand in line for 1-2 hours just to see stuff for a few minutes, it's not worth the trouble and hopefully whenever the next XP happens, they can fix that.

The starting scene from Pokemon Red all those years ago

Sunday - Championship Sunday at the Chase Center and the Big Announcement for Worlds 2027

Watching the finals of all the games taking place at an arena for last year's event was really cool so I was psyched to see how much more grander it will be since it'll be at the Chase Center. I've been inside once for AEW Revolution PPV back in 2023 and I thought it was huge. 

And sure enough, it blew away my expectations. The lighting, the graphics on the floor, the overall presence was just amazing, fitting use for a Championship Sunday I would say. I saw a bit of the GO games, it was alright. The TCG stuff was awesome as always, the Juniors game was probably the best one. And seeing a friend like Andrew win the World Championship was pretty damn cool, especially in person! 

The VGC games had the most hype from what I saw, it got the most reaction too and hey, it was the first time Champions was used for Worlds. I should download it and try it out myself too. 

After everything was done, champions were crowned, and a mini performance. We got some announcements, for GO, Champions and TCG. The TCG one I thought was a bit of a letdown, they just showed alternate art of cards we already have in standard, and I do not care one bit. The only thing they did tease was the new ex star, whatever it may be! Oh they announced a new Pokémon movie, which had a TCG theme going which is cool. I'd check it out for sure. And then we get the announcement, where is Worlds going next?...

Pokemon World Championships 2027 in Singapore!!!!!!

Worlds 2027 in Singapore!

You heard it right, my home country of Singapore is hosting Worlds next year!!! I mean I knew about it from 2 months ago when I friend of mine broke the news to me, and I never leaked! But still to see the Solgaleo show up on the screen, I already knew since Solgaleo is our new Pokémon Center mascot. 

But yeah, Worlds at home, I never thought I'd see the day. I know I've been jokingly asking for Worlds to be in Singapore for about 10 years but to actually see it happening is pretty cool. And my first live official TCG tournament happened in 2017, so it does feel a bit of a full circle moment for Worlds to be happening in Singapore 10 years later. 

I do hope I can be one of the lucky 12 people out of 700+ players here in Singapore who can represent the home crowd in the biggest stage. It won't be easy since everyone will want to get their invite this year since we don't have to travel for once! I probably feel I have the most pressure out of anyone here because when the announcement was made, all of my friends were telling me, hey I guess I'll see you next year! And the only way for me to do that is to qualify for Worlds for a third time (I could get a spectator pass too but that's very unlikely to happen this year since Worlds is at home). 

World in 2026 felt more bigger, more grander, more hyped than when I was in 2023 which I thought was impossible since it was in Japan after all! But SF made it a special one for sure. It did help that I was staying in the city too for once, I was staying in Tokyo for Worlds in 2023, 1 hour away from Yokohama. I do hope next year's Worlds in Singapore will be just as special.

I also have the addition motivation to do one better than this year's Worlds. Both my runs so far have ended at 5-3. Lost in Round 7 in 2023, lost in the win and in at Round 8 this year, and I know I can make Day 2 so that's my aim for this next year, if I qualify in the first place. I'll do my very best to get there and hopefully see you all here in Singapore!

Team Singapore in San Francisco for Worlds 2026. See you all next year in Singapore!

Singapore 2025-2026 Season Recap + MBL 2026 Recap - Got my 2nd Worlds Invite!

So I meant to do a re-cap of Season 3 and the Master Ball League separately but I've just been so busy with other stuff, I never had time to do it so why not combine the two into one big post together? So here's my re-cap of not just season 3 but the entire 2025-26 season, including a short re-cap on how Seasons 1 and 2 also went and of course the main event, the Master Ball League where I didn't do as well as I hoped but with other results going my way, I've earned my second Pokemon TCG World Championships invite, and it'll be my first Worlds in the USA as well, my first official event in the USA to add to that!

SEASON 1

I called my shot 2 years ago

As I've been saying for the past year or so, the plan was also to push for my Worlds invite in 2026, not 2025 because I didn't really care to go to Anaheim, or Hawai'i before that. I really wanted to go to San Francisco instead. And the last time I said that, I did make it in for Yokohama in 2023!

For the first season in the 2025-26 season, we had just 24 Great Ball Leagues to go along with the 4 Ultra Ball Leagues, which is an upgrade from last season as it used to be just 3 Ultra Ball events. The trade off? There are less points on offer to score in these Ultra Ball Leagues.

So now with the new points payout, I started working out on how to get my Worlds invite, and what is the likely points threshold to get there. The early signs from my calculations were about 210 LP, which would mean that if I could win 7 Great Ball League (7 x 30 LP = 210 LP), I might be quite safe to get my Worlds invite so that was my plan for the season, go for 7 wins! Which is quite a tall task for someone like me as I had only gotten 1 Great Ball League win all of last season. But then again, I wasn't really pushing for the invite last season, much different story this time.

I actually didn't get to play much for season 1 as you might notice the big gap between GBL 7 and GBL 20, I went to Japan for 2 weeks for holiday and before that, I only managed to get into 2 GBLs so I had to pretty much write off this first season and hope I can do well in the UBLs.

I did manage to get my first GBL win in the last day of the GBL period at Brick's Play with Dragapult ex/Dusknoir, it was a meta call choice that worked perfectly for me as I played against two Zards in Rounds 4 and 5! I played four different decks for UBL, trying to find which deck would be the perfect choice for the Premier Ball League. Ended up going with my comfort choice of Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex, and I did make Day 2 before losing straight away in Top 128 Cut, I did write about it here.

SEASON 2

On to Season 2 and I also did write about the entire season here. Long story short, I had a Dawn Zard deck ready for PBL, never played it, waited for the new season to play it, learnt from Oscar Madsen who helped me a lot with the deck and got 3 GBL wins in one week with it that re-started my hopes to make it to Worlds! And I got my best UBL result with it, 7-1 to finish 10th, still no Top 8 though.

And yes, except for one event where I was already tired, I pretty much played only Dawn Zard for Season 2.

SEASON 3

And now onto this latest season, and while Season 2 put me into the picture for the Worlds invite, Season 3 pretty much got me that Worlds invite, and once again, it was really only because of my results in the Great Ball Leagues.

I started off playing Dawn Zard but with how the meta was shaping up, it wasn't the best choice anymore so I went back to the traditional Zard Pidgeot and got T4 at Rowell. I did then end up playing some meta call decks, Gholdengo for a T4 finish at Brints and Raging Bolt with Joltik to almost a T4 finish. 

Then came the crazy day on March 8th. I got declined for all 3 events, and at this point, I had been declined for pretty much every event in March and I need to play in these events to get my last 3 GBL wins. So I got declined at KouritenSG at Chinatown, took the 30 minute train ride to Tai Seng to go to Deckard, got declined there as well and then I had to make this crazy bus ride all the way to Chua Chu Kang, all the way in the West! And I only had 1 hour to make it before registration for walk-ins were closed. I had to rush and ran after two busses to get there, dashing across traffic twice, and made it to ManaPro with 5 minutes to spare! And sure enough, I somehow won that event, with Charizard Pidgeot too, the one with 3 Battle Cages in it!

But the pivotal moment that I think got me my Worlds invite was the final weekend of the GBL events, on March 27th, 28th and 29th. I managed to walk in for Inferno Gaming, taking the risk of going to a smaller event over the bigger event where I might not even get to walk in for hopefully an easier chance to win the event. I did get in and got 2nd with Pult Dusk, losing to Crustle because of some awful prizes but +15 is still something good for me! 

For March 28th, once again I went to the smaller event to give myself the best shot of winning, but only because that's the one I was elected in, still played Pult Dusk and I won that event, getting my 6th GBL win of the season. One more to go and I had two shots at getting that on the last day. And as it was, I did get the last win, on my last event playing my favourite deck of all time, Charizard ex, this time with Dawn, beating an interesting Mega Abosl/Teal Mask Ogerpon deck in Round 5 to get my 7th GBL win, putting me up to 225 points, well past the target of 210 I had set for myself so I was pretty happy to not just reach my target but also hit my goal of 7 GBL wins of the season.

And why did I focus on scoring well at Great Ball Leagues over Ultra Ball Leagues? Lesser rounds for half the points seems much better to me and I seem to have some really torrid luck for these UBLs, I still haven't gotten a Top 8 finish in them.

For the UBLs, the first three I played a Raging Bolt list that wasn't the one people knew about, especially with our 4 Meowths ex in the list that Clifton came up with. I didn't have the best of run but I had been planning to play Bolt for MBL anyways so these games were all a learning experience for me. I played Turbo Ogerpon for the last UBL just to have some fun, didn't expect to get a 6-3 score with it!

MASTER BALL LEAGUE 2026

Why Raging Bolt/Teal Mask Ogerpon?

A good question, why did I go with Bolt. I wasn't really a Bolt player before that, hardly played the deck much to be honest. But I tested a lot for the MBL and everytime, Bolt came up with a good record in these test results which made me think it was the way to go. Yes sure Pult was always the best choice but I wasn't too keen on having my fate decided by mirrors again.

Every time I tested it, it had one of the better scores of any decks I played. And the deck didn't seem to mind whether it was going first or second, both worked well for the deck which was a big plus for me so I had kinda locked not just my Ultra Ball League choices from these test results but also my Master Ball League choice back in April! 

And let's not forget it is best-of-1 format for these UBLs and also Day 1 of Master Ball League, so I had to make sure I had a deck that worked well going first or second. So for anyone who had asked me what the play was and me with my usual answer of "I don't know",  I'm sorry I had to lie a bit but I did know it all along. 

The List

I know what you're thinking....wait this isn't the usual Ian Robb Bolt list. Yes I was testing that too but I just never gelled with it. So I went back to playing Clifton's list instead, as it had lines to help me beat the single prize matchup which I was expecting to see a number of for the MBL.

The one less Mega Kangaskhan ex does mean we start it lesser of the time but it felt fine, as did the 1 Latias ex. Sure prizing it hurts, as it did a few times for me. The Baby Bolt and Koraidon were huge for the deck, giving me outs to deal with single-prize stuff like Alakazam, Festival Lead and Honchkrow. And Baby Bolt is a decent sniper too, especially against Crustle. 

Briar is another card to help with the single prize matchup since we're usually attaching all these energies on Teal Mask Ogerpon anyway! Other than that, it's the usual list. I did play 3 Area Zero Underdephts for Day 1, and switched one out for Jamming Tower for Day 2 as a small meta call which sadly didn't work.

The worst card in the list? If you know me, you know the answer already and it's also why the card is almost hidden in this picture. Unfair Stamp. From testing, I never really got a lot of use out of it, and so many times I kept thinking to myself, would Prime Catcher be better here? Or Hero's Cape? Or Scramble Switch. I did test all 3, and I liked all 3 a lot and if I had the choice, I would have probably gone for Prime Catcher since it works well with Briar and a 3rd gust is great. I accepted defeat, took Unfair Stamp and well it really did nothing for me. The two times I used it in Day 1, it lost me both games.

And now for the fun part of the list, the art choices because I do make an effort for it! 

• Both Lillie's Clefairy ex and Iron Leaves ex were given the Full Art treatment as my alternate attackers, and mainly because I didn't want to get Clefairy and Latias confused again
• Crispin were all in the old reverse-holo art to make it easier to tell them apart, since they're the most important supporter in the deck
• Judge with the new reverse holo, it'll be important in my games, as is Briar, thus the Full Art treatment
• Yellow Border treatment for both Ultra Ball and E-Switch, probably the two most important cards in the deck
• Both Glass Trumpet and Area Zero got the Gym stamp, both interact with Tera on the field
• New XY energies only because I couldn't find my Evolution Grass energies, if not I would have played that instead!

The Run

DAY 1

R1 W vs Max Lim Kwok Yeow

I went: 1st

Deck: Team Rocket's Mewtwo ex

Their final Score: 1-3 Drop

First match of the day and already this fella has pissed me off. Even before we set up for game he says "I'll give you the win, you give me the promo". Sorry but I'm not into that shit, I know I can win. And sure enough I did win because he played really badly. Hey I got my win and I get to keep the promo, sounds like a good deal to me.

Also I don't know how I won from this starting hand!

R2 W vs Ethan Toh Yi Hang

I went: 1st

Deck: Mega Starmie ex/Froslass

Their final Score: 3-3 Drop

We both started Meowth ex but I managed to draw out of it and start swinging into his Mega Starmie for the KO and he didn't have a good response back since I had another Raging Bolt ready to KO his Mega Froslass ex.

R3 W vs Collin Tan Wei Zhi

I went: 1st

Deck: Dragapult ex/Dusknoir

Their final Score: 4-3 (189th)

How do I keep hitting Collin in all these events haha! I knew it was probably a Pult Dusk waiting for me and sadly once again, he had a slow start so I was able to clean up his board from there.

R4 W vs Tristan Tan Yong Cheun

I went: 1st

Deck: N's Zoroark ex

Their final Score: 3-3 Drop

Another game where my awkward starting hand got saved by a really slow start for my opponent so got the dub here.

R5 W vs Gary

I went: 2nd

Deck: N's Zoroark ex

Their final Score: 6-5 (106th)

Sitting at Table 1 for this one so I was abit nervous, especially as this was the win and in for the Day 2 spot, and that was my sole aim for today. I had a normal start for once and got to do my usual gameplan vs Zoroark, so we got the 5-0 start to gurantee my spot into Day 2. Now it's just trying to add as much points as possible for Day 2. That plan didn't go so well...

R6 L vs Saksham Arora

I went: 1st

Deck: Raging Bolt ex/Teal Mask Ogerpon ex

Their final Score: 9-2 (15th)

...because I had a really awkward start here and I had no choice but to put a Khan up front to draw cards. My opponent had 2 energies on board already, managed to get 4 more energies on board from Crispin + Double Teal Mask and got the Iron Leaves ex to get his Khan out of the way (his Latias was prized) to take the 3 prize KO, so I never win from there since I was always on the back foot. I had a chance to come back with Stamp but he drew exactly what he needed to get out of it.

R7 L vs Vincent Quek

I went: 1st

Deck: Okidogi/Barbarcle

Their final Score: 7-4 (76th)

Probably my worst matchup and I still almost got back into the game. I was up 3 prizes but I couldn't close out because my last Boss was prized and he had a Cornerstone Mask Ogerpon on the field for my last two prizes. I had to bank on my Unfair Stamp to help me buy one turn but sure enough, he drew into exactly what he needed to take the win. I thought my Clefairy was safe and then he showed me Power Pro for the KO.

I was happy to make Day 2 but the job still wasn't done and it got tougher for me to make top cut since I will have to start at 5-2. The points standing situation was still looking weird for me, I just needed to make sure, excluding the winner, not more than 4 people would overtake me in the standings. 

I would miss my invite if these were to happen:

- Ricky gets Top 16

- Jasper gets Top 8

- Jeremy gets Top 8

- Anders gets Top 8

- Ryan gets Top 8

- Jon, Kaizer, Shauna, Norman and Evan gets Top 4

After Day 1, a few were eliminated because they didn't make Day 2, aka they are not scoring points (Ricky, Jeremy and Norman). So there was still a small possiblity of me missing cut as 6 people could still overtake me but I had to focus on my own games, 1 round at a time.

DAY 2

R8 LWL vs Syed Farhan

I went: 2nd/2nd/1st

Deck: Dragapult ex/Blaziken ex

Their final Score: 8-3 (42nd)

I had yet another bizzare starting hand in the first round of the day and scooped Game 1 within 2 minutes. My opponent was so confused, "why not play it out?" He was clearly very new to the Bo3 format and I explained to him I had to scoop early to give myself the best chance to get 2 wins from the next 2 games.

Game 2 went perfectly.

Game 3....did not. Another awkward start, I had to get rid of some useful resources just to play the game with Raging Bolt's first attack to discard my hand and draw 6 cards. I took out his Fez thinking his board was weak, and it was. He just so happened to have stamp from no draws in his hand and that stamp lost me the game as I drew into nothing from there. 

R9 WW vs Lim Kim Loong Melvin

I went: 2nd/2nd

Deck: Dragapult ex/Mega Starmie ex

Their final Score: 6-5 (98th)

Both games were actually very close, could have gone either way honestly. His Starmie and Pult made things really awkward for me but managed to get the win both times and both times it came down to like 2-2 prizes or something like that. 

R10 LWW vs Li Guoxiong Jasper

I went: 2nd/1st/2nd

Deck: Team Rocket's Honchkrow

Their final Score: 6-5 (90th)

I saw the pairing and I knew I was in trouble, Honchkrow. One of my worse matchups but I had already practiced this matchup a lot in the lead up to the weekend. I knew my list would give me a decent chance to win if draws were favourable.

Jasper's Macs setup was funny!

Game 1 was the usual game, he just steamrolled me with his set-up. Game 2 he had a much slower set-up and my tech choices came in handy here, both Baby Bolt and Koraidon did their job and I managed to pull off the Briar with Ogerpon for game in Game 2.

Game 3 was much closer, my disruption did buy me some time this time as did attacking with 1 prizers. We did go to time just as he KOed my Koraidon to go down to 2-2 in prizes. Now here's where reading the rules paid off for me, I knew that if we were tied with 2 prizes left at time, the next KO is game, so I called over the judge just to confirm that I just needed to take 1 KO to win and they agreed and I got the KO with Mega Kangaskhan, even though I could have gone for the Briar play again which is what I was lining up for.

R11 LWL vs Hannah Koh Shu En

I went: 2nd/1st/2nd

Deck: Raging Bolt ex/Teal Mask Ogerpon ex

Their final Score: 8-3 (36th)

And we round things off with the Bolt Queen herself. Game 1 I was slow off the block, she took the lead and won from there, I think I scooped with 2 prizes to go. Game 2 was the other way round, I got the first big KO and she scooped. Game 3 was a really weird game, we both were bricking and had to go into Mega Kangaskhan ex even thought we both knew that wasn't ideal in this match. 

She got the first hit in with Passmian and I KOed it. Now I had my prize race sorted, I take either a 2 prizes KO next into a 3 prize KO on her Khan or the other way round. The problem was, she managed to get Stretcher and Fighting to get Passimian back on board and that honestly lost me the game, because I couldn't set up to take a 2 prizer out from that spot because of my rubbish draws.

I played it out as best as I can, and we did hit time but again, I read the rules and this time it wasn't in my favour as she had lesser prizes than me and on her turn so I knew that was game. Didn't even need the judges to tell us what was happening, I kinda explained it.

Ended the day 7-4, not the result I was hoping for, I wanted to get a Top 32 finish to add a few more points to help my cause to get the Worlds invite. But that cause was already helped for me by Round 2. Jasper A lost which meant he couldn't make Top 8 and in the next round, Anders lost which meant now only 3 people can overtake me in the standings which meant I was guaranteed the Worlds invite. 

The funny part was, Anders lost to Anselm, the same guy I had been play testing with for the last 2-3 weeks, and he's the one that punched my ticket to San Francisco. I owe him a nice chicken rice meal at the very least! 

Worlds Invite #2/Season Recap

The Second World Championships Invite is now Guaranteed!

And there we have it. The long nine month grind was over. 

- 33 Great Ball Leagues played

- A further 14 Great Ball Leagues I was declined and failed walk in

- Played in all 12 Ultra Ball Leagues, where I was declined for 8 of them!

- Going to a total of 47 Great Ball League events + 12 Ultra Ball Leagues for the 9 month period

- Spending a total of $810 in event entries (34 x 15 for GBLs and 25 x 12 for UBLs), which is quite painful for me as I'm not making good money at the moment

- All that for a chance to fight for my Worlds invite, and now I've gotten my 2nd World Championships invite, the pain and the grind was worth it!

Now for a bit of a summary of the whole season, these are the decks I played through the 47 events I was in:

And for the decks I scored points with. I scored points with all but one deck, that being Gholdengo ex with Energy Search Pro, everything else scored me some points:

But of course, not all these points are counted for the points standings as we do have a Best Finish Limit of 8, so with the BFL in mind, these are the decks that got me my 225 LP to get me the invite to play at the 2026 Pokémon World Championships in San Francisco, California, USA!

Yup Charizard carried me this season and it's kinda sad that I don't get to play it for the World Championships. It's also kinda funny, the deck was released during the week of my first World Championships in Yokohama, Japan....and of course I picked up a few to use for playtesting purposes because I knew I was going to play it and it rotated in March. I did at least send it off with a win, and the 7th GBL win of the season too! And if you're wondering, I got 4 GBL wins with Dawn Zard, 2 with Pult Dusknoir and 1 with Zard Pidgeot.

And finally, the final standings of the season!

So these are the 24 players who will be representing Singapore at the 2026 Pokemon World Championships in the Masters, Seniors and Juniors categories from the TCG side of things! We'll do our best to make everyone home in SG proud! Thanks for following along with my crazy season and see you all in San Francisco!