My first big win: 2022-23 Singapore Regional League (Q2)

 So last weekend was a really cool one for me. Years and years of trying, failing at many events, be it League Cups, Regionals, Special Events, an International and what not, I finally got my first big win in IRL events at the biggest Singapore Pokémon TCG event so far at 189 players, the Singapore Regional League (the 2nd one)! 

And going into the event, all I was thinking of was trying to get a top 16 finish at the very least to firstly, keep myself in the running for one of those 4 spots of going to the World Championships through the points system and secondly to go one better than the last Regional League event, aka better than a top 32 finish.

1. Points Situation Going Into Regional League
2. Deck Choices for Event/Preparation
3. Regional League - Swiss/Top 16 Cut (Day 1)
4. Top Cut of Regional League (Day 2)
5. Finals Game
6. The Deck
7. Stats from event
8. Shoutouts

Points Situation Going Into Regional League

Well it wasn't looking good for me going into this event. I started the season quite strongly, scoring points in each of my first three events before the downslide happened where for 6 months, I only had one points finish to my name. Then again we're in a bo1 situation, so many variance can be the deciding factor between winning and losing and I've had a lot of them go against me so far this season.

So here's just a short re-cap of how my season has been so far for events with CSP on the line to show what a roller coaster of a ride it's been so far:

• Regional League 1 (17th September) - 29th/131 (Arceus/Flying Pikachu/Zamazenta - 5/3/0) - 150 CSP
• Town League 1 (18th September) - 8th/45 (Arceus/Aggron - 4/2/0) - 130 CSP
• Town League 2 (16th October) - 2nd/32 (Arceus/Giratina - 5/1/0) - 200 CSP
• Town League 3 (24th October) - Not elected
• Town League 4 (20th November) - 34th/46 (Giratina VSTAR - 2/4/0)
• Town League 5 (26th November) - Not elected
• Town League 6 (27th November) - 20th/72 (Giratina VSTAR - 4/3/0) - 75 CSP
• Town League 7 (25th February) - 59th/87 (Lost Zone Toolbox/Radiant Greninja - 3/4/0)
• Town League 8 (26th February) - 47th/68 (Lugia VSTAR - 3/4/0)
• Town League 9 (18th March) - Not elected
• Town League 10 (15th April) - 51st/96 (Mew VMAX/Meloetta - 3/4/0)

So I started the season hot with 480 CSP after just 3 events, and in the next 5 events, just one points finish. So I knew I had to have a good result to stay alive and I really put myself under a lot of pressure the week of the regional to get that result to keep the hopes of finally making it to the World Championships alive after 3 failed attempts.

Deck Choices for Event/Preparation

So I had 4 methods of preparation going into this event:

• - Local playtest/Local Leagues
• - Online tournaments
• - Looking at the meta/results
• - Self play test

• The first one was probably the most important since I'm playing against players I'm likely to meet during the week and most of the players at my local area are what we would call competitive players, loads of them have done well in the past and quite a number of them have been to Worlds. Plus nothing beats testing with the actual cards itself to get the reps in.
• Those games did help me figure out what decks I wanted to play and what I didn't. Lost Box Zard was high up on my list up until the Tuesday of local league where I got beaten soundly by Nicholas with the usual Lost Box Ninja deck. That was a real wake up for me.
• The online tourneys were the usual for me, and a good way for me to prepare for our events since they are mostly playing in a bo1 format too. It was in one tourney that I had a really good run with Arceus/Giratina to get 2nd out of 100+ players that made me think that might be the play for the weekend. The list I used did get profiled on Omnipoke by Joe Bernard. He said it was a big fan of the list and I thought "that has to be it".
• After all that, it's time to do a bit of studying to figure out what might be the best play or not so I would dive into meta forecast videos or especially one like my friend Celio's Network video showcasing the matchups for the best decks going into that weekend. I did some maths, tried to work stuff out and in fact, the numbers were saying Goodra was the best play but I hadn't touched it that much. The next best was ArcTina of the decks I could play.
• The final method was a funny one. Since I couldn't go out to play, I thought, why not I just take two of my decks and play test against myself. Main purpose of this was to see how consistently I can set my deck up since it is a bo1 format. The other reason for doing a self test was so I could try out different lists and a few tech cards to see what worked and what didn't. Through this I started to question if Cleansing Gloves was the right card for my ArcTina deck. Once again ArcTina won most of the games there.

So with all that, I still had the decks in my mind but I had pretty much figured out what I might end up going with. The decks I tried were:

• Lost Zone Toolbox/Radiant Charizard
• I didn't end up going with that even though it was initially my number 1 choice, I had a bit of a hard time with the mirror match for some odd reason and knowing that people here liked playing Lost Box, not the best choice for me
• Gardevoir ex
• The deck is good....if you can set-up in the first place! And that was my issue, I just couldn't set it up in time most of the games I played.
• Mew VMAX
• It was a pretty good choice but in the back of my head, after what happened in the last Town League, I wasn't sure if I wanted to go with Mew.
• My other thinking was, why play Mew when I can play ArcTina? I know. I've heard people say the opposite, why play ArcTina when you can play Mew? I felt like the moment ArcTina can get the Judge Path on them, Mew can struggle if there's no answer to Path. Wherease the ArcTina player isn't worried about it since we have Bibarel and Skwovet to get us out of bad hands. 
• Plus I don't want to lose to Drapion V for no reason.
• Arceus/Duraludon/Vulpix/Flying Pikachu/Espeon/Mix and Match what you like
• I did try it out, I just wasn't a big fan of any of those versions. I preferred ArcTina and I felt it had more answers to the meta then those guys.
• Hisuian Goodra VSTAR
• I simply didn't test this deck enough to think I'd play it well
• Lost Zone Toolbox/Radiant Greninja
• It was probably the best deck to choose out of all of these. I was starting to get the hang of playing the deck. 
• My biggest issue with the 25 minute timing, I didn't want to lose to that. Plus it's not the easiest deck to play and I was suffering from a toothache and a headache going into that weekend so I didn't think I could play it well.
• Arceus/Giratina
• Other than Lost Box Ninja, this was the other one I thought I should go with right away. And after testing it in IRL play, online games, online tourneys, looking at the meta, punching in the numbers and doing some self-test, this felt like the one for me.

Initially I was still flip-flopping over Lost Box Ninja and ArcTina, so I did one final comparison with the matchups for both decks against a slew of decks. After seeing the numbers, it felt like ArcTina might have a better time against the decks I would expect to see that weekend. After talking to a few people who I trusted, I decided on Arceus/Giratina on Thursday night to give myself one day to relax before the event.

Regional League - Swiss/Top 16 Cut (Day 1)

The game plan today was simple. EA Sports. It's in the game. E = Energy and A = Arceus. If I've got these two in my hand in the first turn, I'm in the game. If not, I'm not in the game. Judge + Path is the big one, it could give me wins I shouldn't have, especially against bad matchups like Mew and Lugia. 

Round 1 - 0-0 - Table 81 W vs Shaun Chia (Lost Zone Toolbox/Radiant Greninja)

So this one was a funny story in it of itself. Remember how I said I was still considering Lost Box up till the very end? Well a friend called me on Thursday night asking about the regional and asked me if I had a deck. So I told him, no worries I got you a good one. So I handed him the Lost Box deck I would have played.

That friend is of course Shaun. And sure enough, we hit each other Round 1! What are the odds of that happening? It was a fun game, we had some friendly banter, I kept giving him advise on how to play the deck as we were playing the game, kept teasing him that I knew his exact 60 (it's my deck after all), and I did beat him, even though he had already signed the slip before the start of the round to give me the win. Still good practice!

Round 2 - 1-0 - Table 24 W vs Toh You Soon (Origin Forme Dialga VSTAR/Magnezone)

Here's one of the "rogue" decks people were probably not prepared for but this is where me playing in lots of online tournaments helped. I have played against many Dialga/Magnezone decks the week before so I knew what I needed to do. Path + Judge = Make him stuck?

Sure enough, it did work! My path stopped his Rotom from drawing more cards. After my Judge, all he did was attach pass. He couldn't get the Dialga going and that's another win in the books.

Round 3 - 2-0 - Table 6 W vs Marcus Tan Yi Shuan (Lost Zone Toolbox/Radiant Greninja)

Hit another friend, this time it was Marcus! This was actually the first time we've played each other in an IRL setting (we have played each other a few times in the online tournaments). The match was going smoothly for me and I had the perfect time to use Cheren's Care to save my first Arceus. 

But wait, it gets better! I played a Pal Pad right after it, draw a few more cards with Bibarel, take an attack and sure enough, I top deck the Cheren's Care hahaha! That card, one I didn't get much use of throughout the deck, put me at a 3-0 record. So far so good!

Round 4 - 3-0 - Table 2 L vs Neo Chun Siong (Mew VMAX)

Well it's not table 1 at least, which to me is cursed. Everytime I hit table 1 my event goes downhill from there. I wasn't excited to see my first Mew VMAX. My opponent had mentioned that this was his first time playing in a tournament so big respect to him for the nice 3-0 start! 

He went first but only had two Genesect Vs down so now I was feeling good about my chances. My hand was a bit weird. I did have first game plan, EA Sports! Energy and Arceus. The problem was I also had two bosses, Arceus VSTAR, and a Research in hand, and I didn't feel good throwing two bosses away since I knew my plan was to take out those Genesect Vs anyway and I had no idea of checking if the last boss was prize. 

So I made the risky move to hold my hand and pass over to my opponent, hoping to make him think I had a bad hand so he wouldn't use Judge. Sure enough he plays Judge because he was bricking and he said "let me help each other". I was laughing but I was also hurting inside because there went my Arceus VSTAR and I had a dead hand after that Judge. In hindsight, I probably should have taken the risk and went for Research. His path locked me out of the game, never got to use Starbirth. 3-1, oh well, still early days.

Round 5 - 3-1 - Table 7 W vs Haruki Okunishi (Lugia VSTAR/Archeops)

Up next for me was probably our best Junior player in all of Singapore. Haruki already has a top 8 finish to his name at the first Regional (beating all of us older players along the way) so he's the real deal. And he was playing Lugia too, one of my worst matchups.

I had a bit of a lucky break with my start as I had Arceus V and attached a V Guard energy onto it, knowing that there's probably no way his Lugia could knock me out first turn. I went for the risky play of Path Judge hoping to slow him down but sure enough he had the answer right away. He did go for the 220 attack and I had to let him know I had V Guard on so he couldn't take his first two prizes. 

The deciding point of the game was when I had two prizes left and he had an Yveltal in the active. I checked his discard and saw only 1 Urn in there so I knew I couldn't attack that and had to go for boss on someone else, either the Stonjourner or the two Archeops. I was still afraid of his Urshifu V that hadn't shown up at all yet. I went for the Stonjourner and after that he had nothing and showed me that the Urshifu was prized. Lucky break for me there.

Round 6 - 4-1 - Table 12 L vs Lee Hwee Liang (Lugia VSTAR/Archeops)

It doesn't get any easier does it. I knew Hwee Liang was on Lugia so I was a bit worried about that game. I didn't have the best of starts so all I had was an Arceus and a Giratina. I was concerned that my Giratina could get knocked out by a Lugia so I made a decision to attach just one energy on it, which in hindsight was a mistake as I should have just gone all in an attached two to it and just say, you don't have it. 

I took out his Stonjourner and sure enough, he plays a Lumineon for Thorton! Yup the stone guy is back to knock out my Arceus. Then came the awkward realisation that, even though I could take 3 prizes with my Tina, I didn't have a back-up attacker ready. And he did have a Lumineon on board so I had to slowly get the next Arceus set up after my Tina was taken out. My only hope was to feed him the single prize support while I take my two turns to get Arceus ready to KO Lumineon. And of course he plays Collapsed Stadium to get rid of that to take away my one win con. So not attaching one more energy on Giratina cost me game, I was just a turn behind from winning after that.

Round 7 - 4-2 - Table 12 W vs Wwws (Inteleon VMAX/Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX)

I wasn't feeling all that good going into this one. I had just played three bad matchups in a row and this was the win and in to hopefully bubble in to top cut. So imagine how I must have felt when he flipped over an Inteleon V. Looking at the matchup spread I had written down, there is one deck that is a worse matchup for me than Lugia, and it's this one, Urshifu/Inteleon.

No time to panic, I told myself to calm down and let's just react to what is happening, make the best out of this. Thankfully my opponent didn't have the best of starts and I was able to take out his Octillery Turn 2, set up Giratina and the moment he benched down a Rapid Strike Urshifu, I went right for it with Giratina. The V Guards also played a big part in this game as his Inteleons could only hit me for 120 and not 140, which is a two shot on my two attackers (and Path had been stuck the whole game so he couldn't use his ability). It came down to needed a Boss after he retread his heavily damaged Inteleon VMAX. And I had that little Skwovet there. And it got me a boss for game to put me into Top 16 cut!

After a few minutes of waiting and trying to figure out if I had made it in or not, I decided not to think about it and watch Hwee Liang's last match against Wayne. If Hwee Liang won, I'm pretty sure I would bubble in. And he did! My R4 opponent also won his last round game which made me the 5-2 player with the highest resistance as they both had 6 wins. WE'RE IN!!!!

After so many months of having just bad result after bad result, only scoring 75 CSP for the last six bloody months, this felt good. I was guaranteed 200CSP at the very least so that was a nice feeling! Most of us decided to head to the nearest McDonald's for our late lunch/early dinner break before our Top 16 games.

And before that, of course I had to get to work to get the Top 16 result out on PokeStats twitter page and thankfully I had all 16 player's deck archetypes with me. And as it turns out, I'm up against the same Mew player who gave me my first loss back in Round 4.

But then we get the best news of all. Top 16 would be played in best of 3!!!! In my head, I was telling myself, "now we finally get to play Pokemon TCG the way it should be". Even though I didn't like that I was going up against Mew (a bad matchup), I was up for it. I know how to approach these bo3 games, and my opponent did mention this was his first tournament (congrats to him on making top 16 in his first tourney btw, that's pretty damn cool), I had a good feeling.

Top 16 - 5-2 - Table 6 WW vs Neo Chun Siong (Mew VMAX)

I went second in both games but somehow won both of them! He didn't have the best of starts in Game 1 and I got the best start with Arceus, DTE and a second Arceus so I had a KO on his second Mew V right away. The second game was a bit more event. I did get my Starbirth off both games thankfully so his Path didn't always work. 

The second game came down to a crucial Judge. He had 7 cards in hand, I checked his discard pile and only saw one Boss so I was pretty sure he was holding on to another Boss in hand so I went for Judge and all I could do was hope he didn't have it. 

Sure enough, he didn't and I drew into my boss thanks to Skwovet + Bibarel to put myself into Top 8!!! We're going to the Pokémon Center for top 8 cut wooho!!! Shaun was watching my game and he did tell me after I had won that my opponent was holding on to a Boss in hand pre-Judge so that felt good. Time to rest up and Top 8 is up next!

Regional League - Top 8 Cut (Day 2)

Top 8 - 6-2 - Table 3 WW vs Danny Leong (Arceus VSTAR/Duraludon VMAX/Alolan Vulpix VSTAR)

Before the Swiss rounds on Saturday, I was still feeling a bit nervous. But for some reason, going into Top 8 cut, for the first time in a long while, I felt quite confident. And anyone who knows me knows I'm not the most confident person in the world, I struggle with that a lot. So that was a weird feeling to have going into Top 8. I just kept thinking to myself, "I can do this"!

First game was a bit of a funny one. We both misplayed. My opponent judged me into a Judge, Giratina V, Bidoof and an energy, so I put those down, Judged him back, got my Arceus VSTAR and started thinking....and maybe I overthought for a bit because off my Starbirth I took Giratina VSTAR and Bibarel and thought I had played them the turn before by accident! Ok there's still some nerves but I shook it off after that. Sadly now my opponent knows what I took but thankfully he went for a Colress right away. And then he misplayed by attaching a DTE to someone else, played some cards and tried to attach a metal energy to his active Arceus. I didn't catch it right away but the Judges were right on to that like they were for my own mistake. Kudos to them!

Both games went quite smoothly for me. I wasn't troubled seeing his Duraludon as I had path and my second Arceus had no special energy. Game 2 was much of the same. The big point was when he promoted Duraludon VMAX after I took down his Arceus VSTAR. In my head I knew I had to go around the Duraludon and try to take out two VSTARS with my Giratina VSTAR that already had 3 energies on it. But to do that, I needed two Boss's Orders and I only had one in hand. But while I was thinking through that, my opponent decided to retreat his Durlaudon VMAX and promote his Arceus VSTAR which was a confusing move. That essentially gave me game since now I didn't need to worry about getting the second Boss, it was in hand and he was out of Judges! Top 4 here we go!!!

Top 4 - 7-2 - Table 2 WW vs Eujun Gan (Hisuian Goodra VSTAR)

So we go from my first Arceus matchup of the whole tournament to my first Goodra matchup of the whole tournament. But I was feeling excited because it was Goodra and not Mew. I knew the danger man in my bracket was my friend Anselm as he had gone 7-0 in Swiss with Mew and like I mentioned, that's a bad matchup so I was a bit relieved to see Goodra on the other side.

Eujun and I were talking during the first few turns as we hadn't played each other since 2019, and he hadn't played since that time (I knew him from the Qishan/Sanctuary Gaming local days). He started Drapion V which was a gift for me. He had two Comfeys, a Radiant Greninja and Goodra on his board so I counted 5 prizes right there. After a while he was forced to bench another Comfey which meant now I could play around his Goodra and just go after everything else. And it worked since I played two Escape Rope (mainly for Goodra) to give me that extra gust!

The second game was a painful one for Eujun. He started Comfey and Greninja, did a flower selecting and passed. I did my turn, pass. He did flower selecting and pass again. So now I knew something was up with his hand and went for Research from Starbirth. Not the best Research as I drew no outs to get the second Arceus VSTAR ready. 

Then he has his Goodra down and I looked at my hand. There's an Escape Rope and Choice Belt, all I need is Arceus VSTAR to take that big KO. Nope, didn't draw into it. His Goodra is now a VSTAR and has gotten Iron Rolling up. What did I draw next? Of course Ultra Ball, one turn too late. But we got the win thanks to Path Judge, he drew nothing out of it and I got KO with Giratina's Shred + Choice Belt.

And now I'm in the finals of the Singapore Regional League!!! Maybe just maybe I might get my first big IRL win. But waiting on the other side was either Hwee Liang with his Lugia deck that I lost to in Round 6, or the legend himself Jit Min who was playing Gardevoir.

Earlier that day, I actually messaged Nicholas and told him "Ideally, I play Jit Min in finals and beat him, revenge for 4 years ago". The "revenge" was me losing to him back in May 2019 at the Singapore SPE. I was playing the best I had at that point, going to Game 3 when I made one simple error and he punished me for it. I hadn't forgotten that game since then, that was a huge learning experience. And sure enough, I got my wish, I was up against Jit Min in the finals.

Final - 8-2 - Table 1 WLW vs Lim Jit Min (Gardevoir ex)

Somehow this was my first Gardevoir matchup in the whole tournament! I spoke to Jit Min for a bit and mentioned that game we had four years ago and of course he jokingly said "well let's hope you make a mistake again haha". In my head I was thinking, hopefully not this time.

Game 1:

I went first which was huge for me. My turn 1 was simple, attach energy on Arceus, bench Bidoof pass. Jit Min's first turn was a board of two Ralts, two Mews and the Zacian V with the active Mew getting the energy. Turn 2, I get the Arceus VSTAR set up, bossed up a Ralts, got Bibarel, Skwovet and Giratina V down and all 3 energies attached to Tina. He gets a Gardevoir set up Turn 2 but not much after his Judge. 

I knock out the active Mew and got the next Arceus V set up and ready to go. He bumps my Path, uses Lumineon to get Research and has Zacian ready to KO my Arceus. I got the Rope + Boss after missing Arceus VSTAR to KO his Zacian with my Giratina VSTAR that had V Guard on it. Two prizes left and he scoops, on to Game 2.

Game 2:

He goes first and has 3 Ralts on bench, Zacian in the active with two Energies on it. My turn 1 was just having an active Bidoof, a second Bidoof and an Arceus with energy. Pass. He gets Gardevoir Turn 2 again, KOs Bidoof with his Zacian. I get the VSTAR for Turn 2 but I don't have a real good target to hit into. So I decide to go Path Judge, set up a Tina and hope for the best.

He goes right for my Bibarel with a Boss, that's not good for me. I promote Arceus VSTAR, set up another V, set up Arceus, play another Judge because my hand was dead and get my first two prizes. Jit Min gets Worker off his 3rd Kirlia to bump my stadium, gets the Zacian ready for the KO. Now I'm in an awkward spot. I've only got Giratina V on board and Arceus V on board. I've only got one Arceus VSTAR in deck but two Giratina VSTAR in deck. So I made the call to promote Giratina V. What did I top deck?

Arceus VSTAR of course. My heart sank. That was the wrong call and probably cost me game. I went ahead to attack his Zacian with Tina's Shred, all I could do now was hope and pray. Once again off his 3rd Kirlia draw he got the stadium bump to take Game 2 thanks to Gardevoir (probably should have just attacked with Arceus VSTAR to avoid that issue, my mistake!).

Game 3:

The starting hand is not good. Arceus V, Arceus VSTAR, Giratina VSTAR, Choice Belt, Escape Rope, Ultra Ball and Boss's Orders. Notice something missing? Yup the energy. I was getting a bit worried. The first draw? A freaking Double Turbo Energy! My heart jumped when I saw it, we're back in the game!

Jit Min gets Battle VIP Pass and notices something weird so something is clearly up with his prizes. A couple of my friends who were watching the game told me after the game that two of his Ralts were prized so that was good for me.

My top deck was a Nest Ball so now I can set up my next Arceus to threaten his Zacian since I was holding on to a Choice Belt. I got Bidoof and Judge off my Starbirth, attach the Choice Belt to Arceus and off to the races we went. Path and hit the Mew for prize #1 with all 3 energies going to the benched Arceus. Main reason for that was because I had boss in hand to go after that Zacian. He does promote Zacian and attacks my active Arceus. My top deck? Arceus VSTAR. Problem solved, there's prize #2 and #3. His board now was just two Ralts. I'm feeling good about this.

He bumps stadium with Worker and once again gets a Gardevoir with Rare Candy! He goes after my Bidoof with his Cresselia for his first prize. I bossed his Kirlia to take prize #4 and put a Path down for good measures. Two more prizes to go! This is where I was starting to get nervous.

He gets Temple of Sinnoh and bosses up my Giratina and attacks it. His Gardevoir is now down to 230 HP. I am holding a Research in hand. Pretty obvious what I need to do next right? Just research and dig for the Giratina VSTAR for game. Nope, I stupidly retreated into the Arceus with Choice Belt thinking it was going to do 230 to his Gardevoir. Gardevoir is an ex Pokémon, not a V Pokémon. Belt doesn't work. Whoops.

But I wasn't fussed about it to be honest. I knew I still had a good shot of winning because I was ahead on prizes and now I had two easy KOs on either Gardevoir ex or Zacian V. Jit Min knew that so he had to attack with Cresselia. The problem for him was I was holding on to my second Escape Rope. Game over. I just won the Singapore Regional League!!!! My first ever big IRL tourney win, featuring 189 players in the field (biggest one in Singapore so far too) and I'm the one who won it all!

(Big thanks to friends who were watching this to help me with the notes for how the finals played, the game was recorded but apparently will not be released and I can't remember everything so I'm glad I had some help with this)

I couldn't believe I actually won the dang thing! This win helps me with my hopes to qualify for the 2023 Pokémon TCG World Championships and like I said before, I was hungry to make it happen after missing out back in 2019 and 2020. If I could make it to Worlds at least once, then I can prove to myself that I might actually be a good enough player to warrant that invite. My first big win and it was with a comfort deck too, something that hadn't seen play in quite a while!

Also me winning this event shows that anything is possible and anyone of you can win it. I’m not the best player in that room going into top 8 and I knew for a fact that half the guys in top 8 cut were or have had coaching sessions with top players either in SG or from overseas. I can’t afford to do these things so I know less than what they probably might know from having these things. But somehow I got the win. Anything truly is possible.

The Deck

As for this list, the biggest of thanks to the incredible Harrison Burch for his help. He was the one who came up with the initial list that I tested, helped me fix the list a bit and also came up with the last minute addition of Skwovet (which helped me win a number of games) so thank you very my man!

Pokémon:

x4 Arceus V

x3 Arceus VSTAR

x2 Giratina V

x2 Giratina VSTAR

x2 Bidoof

x2 Bibarel

x1 Skwovet

Quite simple here. You want to have Arceus Turn 1, thus the EA Sports plan. Most of the time you're only using 2 of them to attack so 3 is the perfect number. 2 Giratina because you'd rather not start it and it's more of a closer, to finish off the matches. 2-2 Bibarel line to help you refresh your hand and now with Skwovet, you can even fix bad hands to help you draw more cards with Bibarel. Perfect synergy! Who could have guessed that me spending $59 on an ETB in a random Target store in downtown Los Angles, USA with the Skwovet inside would end up helping me win this tournament. Funny how life works.

Supporters:

x4 Judge

x3 Boss's Orders

x2 Professor's Research

x1 Cheren's Care

x1 Raihan

The game plan of the deck is to go Path Judge thus the 4 Judges. 3 Boss feels about right to me and 2 Research is honestly fine, I've had hands where I didn't want to throw stuff away so I'd rather Judge than Research, you do need to keep a lot of important resources in the deck. Cheren helps with the Lost Box matchup and also in situations where they can't quite KO Arceus. Raihan is just a safety net in case you're in a sticky position where you don't have any energies on board after an attacker was knocked out.

Items:

x4 Nest Ball

x4 Ultra Ball

x3 Trekking Shoes

x2 Escape Rope

x1 Switch

x1 Pal Pad

Nest Ball is needed to help set up the attackers and the support mons. Ultra Ball helps to get the VSTARs into action. I felt the 3 shoes were perfect for this deck, it help dig out stuff and has bailed me out of a few bad hands where I was either missing Arceus or energy and the shoes would get me there.

One switch and one rope is usually the norm but not here. Two escape rope worked really nicely, it was meant specifically for the Goodra matchup but it helped me against decks that were playing the set up game and also against stuff like Mew where I got the extra gust to win. And hey, the second Escape Rope is the reason why I now have a plague that says Singapore Regional League winner. Pal Pad was incredibly useful to me, helped me get two Cheren's vs Lost Box and saved some Bosses that I had to discard or use early on.

Tools:

x1 Choice Belt

Belt to help with the numbers against V mons (not ex mon as I remembered). Initially the list also had Cleansing Glove but I felt it might not even help me much against Gardevoir ex and Mew VMAX (the two main matchups for it) so I took it out for Skwovet. I can see a world where a 3rd Trekking Shoes could be replaced by the Glove.

Stadium:

x3 Path to the Peak

Three Paths felt fine to be honest. Again, the 3rd shoe I can see being replaced for either a 4th Path to really stick it to some decks or even possibly a one-off Lost City to help get rid of certain tech attackers like Radiant Charizard, Dragonite V or any fighting type attackers like Stonjourner or Zapdos V.

Energy:

x4 Grass Energy

x4 Psychic Energy

x4 Double Turbo Energy

x2 V Guard Energy

14 energies feels like a good enough number to execute the EA Sports plan. I found the 2 V Guards to be really helpful, it saved me vs Lugia and also in certain situations where I knew my Arceus could be in trouble and having it saved me from a KO.

Stats from the event

So here's the Top 32 from the Singapore Regional League if anyone was interested to know

Winning the event really saved my season and has given me a good shot to finally make the Worlds dream a reality. This is the Top 30 ranking after the event, and hopefully I've calculated everything correctly:

So the situation is completely different to what it was before the regional. I've jumped from 20th to 2nd! Some people may say I'm almost all but confirmed for that Worlds spot but I know things can change in an instant. We still have the Championships coming up in middle of June with the biggest points payout of the season:

I don't even want to think of all the permutations and scenarios I need to get into the top 4 of the standings to earn that Day 1 invite to Worlds. The simplest solution as some of my friends would say is, "just win". Win the championship, that's a Day 2 invite no matter your points situation. So ideally, the best scenario for me is for Yong Siang to win the whole thing haha! And he's already guaranteed a top 16 finish because of his win at the Asia Open. 

We still have no idea how the points will work out, initially it was said we'd need to get 2000CSP and be top 4 but I believe that's no longer the case. So just stay in the top 4! The issue is, anyone behind me in the standings can easily get a top 4 or top 8 finish and jump right ahead of me and put me out of top 4 in the rankings so I still need to get a good result to be safely in. My destiny is pretty much in my own hands, which is still sadly in a bo1 tournament.

At least I did myself a world of good with this win.

Shoutouts

Usually by this point, I'll just end anything I have on here by saying "thanks for reading" but I wanted to do things right this one time and give thanks to the people who helped me along this weird little journey I'm on to make it to the Pokémon world championships at least one time. I'm going to try not to name many names because I know I will feel very bad if I miss out on certain names so I'll limit to a few.

• My family
• They've always been there to support me even though they don't want me to keep spending money on these cards or even play at times. I just wished I could have shown Dad my trophy, he would have been happy.
• The PokéStats crew
• These guys and girls have had my back ever since I joined the crew back in 2018. Even though I've only met one or two of you in real life so far, I've made so many great friends just from being around that group. These people have kept me sane when I was doubting myself and always cheered me on! They've even given me the time of day to help me out with deck lists and small little advise about the game. I can't thank these guys and girls enough. Even though we're in the group to help run a website, sometimes it feels like a little family. 
• On that, a further thanks to Luke who has been more than happy to help me prepare for these events for the last few years, Tate for testing with me back in the day whenever we can and even helping with some decks, Loc for always helping me out whenever I'm out of ideas and giving me some really cool ones, Jeremy for also helping me, I almost jumped on the Lost Box bandwagon solely because of him. And of course I had people like Erik, Erin, Kenny and the rest who always cheer me on! Always feels nice to see.
• The Local crew
• To all the guys and girls I've played against here in Singapore, be it at locals in Qishan from 2017 onwards and later on moving to Sanctuary Gaming from 2018 onwards, Project EXT, Metagame, Pokebar, Agora Hobby, Brick's Play, Excel CS, Next Gen, Jugawa, Concept City and of course my main local to go to, Goodness Gracious Gaming, thanks for all the games and helping me become a better player!
• On the last bit, the guys over at GGG have been really helpful to me over the years, I've played them many times, be it during the local games or just some test games before or after events, and they've made me step up my game to be a better player. Even boss Thomas who doesn't play but always helps me with decks, he's the one that told me, Arceus is your style of deck, go with it! And I did! 
• And of course, the OGs be it from the Qishan days or the Project EXT days back in Ang Mo Kio, they've taught me a lot and still to this day continue to help whenever possible 
• Even though I don't get to play weekly against many of you guys, a lot of you always come up and talk to me at these events like Town Leagues or Regionals or even the Asia Open and I always appreciate you guys even wanting to talk to me!
• I have to give mention to 4 specific people, Jeremy, Joey, Jit Min and of course Clifton. Games with them are never easy and I've learnt loads from them and I always appreciate any sort of advise or words they give after the games, you have to learn from the best right? Even now I'll get nice messages from Clifton who might not be playing but is always there to give encouraging words of wisdom and I'll always be thankful for it.
• Nicholas, you're the best! Be it our playtest sessions at my house or at locals, I can never stop learning from you and he's always been my go-to guy whenever I need help with decks or advise, thank you very much!
• Big thank you to Bryan, Nicholas, boss Thomas, Mickey, Hwee Liang, Xavier, Mike, Gabriel, Santosh, Afiq, Danny, they either stayed after their top cut games or made their way to the Pokemon Center to watch the games, thank you guys for cheering me on during the finals, I appreciate it!
• Not quite local but also thank to you all my Malaysian, Phillipines, Thai and Indonesian friends I've met, even through the old TPCi events or even through online, always a pleasure getting the chance to play against you guys whenever possible
• The overseas crew
• Well, I have met A LOT of you through these online tournaments, and honestly too many to count but mostly it's always been a fun time. A number of you have been nice enough to add me to your group chats and your discord groups and made me feel welcome even when I felt a bit out of place. Be it through the Hegster events, the Chill TCG events, the Late Night events, the Sunday Open events, the PH/Asia Open events, whatever it may be, wherever you may be from, thank you for the games!
• The WPGP crew. Thomas, Josh, Pat, Dave, Andy and Nathon, thanks for always helping me out and having my back, be it the Centiskorch days with Mr Brophy himself or even now. They were helping me out iron out the list and figure out the last few counts and not just this event, they've been there for me for a number of events so I always appreciate their help
• Special shoutout to Kevin Clemente (Mellow Magikarp), he was nice enough to talk with me about some decks I had been considering in the lead up of the week and even hearing some ideas I had to share, be it good or bad, I really appreciate him taking his time to listen in
• Of course, Harrison, Connor and Izaiah were helping me out with the ArcTina stuff so I appreciate the help!
• And to the whole lot of you who were wishing me well on Twitter or Facebook when you guys found out I had made top cut, or into top 8, top 4 and then finals, I really appreciate the kind thoughts. You'll never understand what seeing those messages did for me, especially after the event. Truly appreciate every single one of you for that.

As a certain Mr Cody Rhodes once said, it's time to finish the story. The grind doesn't stop, I plan to keep on practising abd to prepare myself for the championship in June and hopefully do well enough to book that spot to Worlds. Hopefully I'll have some good news around this time next month. Thank you for reading!