Singapore Premier Ball League 2024/25 - 70th/409 - Changes are not always good

 Our first event of the season after a long.....very LONG wait is finally done and after weeks of practicing and testing, I unfortunately don't have a good result, in my own personal view, to show for my Charizard ex deck yet again. So that's 4 majors in a row I have now sadly failed my beloved Charmander and Friends deck. 

1. Testing and Deck Choices
2. The [Original] Deck List
3. The [Actual] Deck List
4. Tournament Run
5. What's Next?

Testing and Deck Choices

I actually starting writing down notes from my testing as far back as 3 weeks before the Premier Ball League event, because I was over in Japan and I didn't get to test much there since PTCGL doesn't "work" there.

I was noticing a lack of Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex decks doing well from Dortmund and Joinville and thought maybe Dragapult ex would be the better option, those two along with Terapagos ex were the three decks I was confident in. I was also testing out Origin Forme Palkia VSTAR/Dusknoir and Lugia VSTAR/Archeops and after the first few tests, I was quite high on Terapagos, it seemed the best out of those 4.

First ranking:

1. Terapagos
2. Dragapult
3. Palkia
4. Lugia

Then we had Louisville Regionals and Seb Lashmet got top 4 with Charizard ex so that gave me hope that it's still decent in the meta, so as usual, I swapped out the Dragapult stuff for my Charizard stuff (both decks are sharing most of the cards anyway), and also tried out Lost Box and Gardevoir, two decks I knew quite well.

Second ranking:

1. Charizard
2. Terapagos
3. Dragapult
4. Palkia
5. Lost Box
6. Everything else, who cares

Charizard blitzed everyone else, it had an 80% win rate during that round of testing and I felt good that my original favourite is still the way to go. Funnily enough it was winning more going 2nd but I could see why going 1st was better except against the Turbo decks.

The other deck that did quite well was Palkia, I could see it's strength and how it could destroy and set-up decks within Turn 2, that was a real big selling point of the deck. The biggest turn off for me for that deck was simply starting 2nd, it just falters hard.

I played around with some more of the same stuff, started testing Gardevoir/Banette which seemed really good. I had a cool run of results of making top cut with 4 different decks in online tournaments, including 2 wins on pretty much the same day (US timing at least)

• Lost Box (7th/93) - 6/3/0 - List
• Banette/Gardevoir (1st/98) - 8/1/1 - List
• Charizard/Pidgeot (1st/214) - 10/1/0 - List
• Dragapult/Pidgeot (9th/138) - 8/1/1 - List

The Tournament of Doom win with Charizard was a huge confidence booster for me, I hadn't won a big online event in a while now and to do it with Charizard just showed that it still works for me. I had to play against two Lugias in Top 4 and Finals, a matchup I was a bit worried about but it turned out alright because of the new stuff we had in Zard lists now. And if you're interested in watching some of the games, they're here.

Third ranking:

1. Charizard
2. Gardevoir Banette
3. Dragapult
4. Terapagos
5. Palkia Dusk
6. Everything else, who cares

After that I was testing out decks that did well in Lille, including, and I finally had to bite the bullet, Raging Bot...I mean Bolt. Palkia and Lugia did the best in these rounds of testing. I tried the Bouffalant version of Terapagos and hated it. I'm normally a fan of the Pult Pidgeot line but in this testing, it sadly didn't do so well.

Fourth ranking:

1. Charizard
2. Palkia Dusk
3. Terapagos
4. Lugia
5. Gardevoir Banette
6. Everything else, who cares

I saw Azul post a Charizard list without the Dusk-line, something I had thought about myself and gave it a try...and it worked. It was really good, I was surprised by that. It even found a way to beat Lugia and Regidrago, two decks I thought for sure needed the Dusknoir line. It did struggle more to Terapagos because of the lack of Dusknoir line.

After that, I decided to set myself three guidelines in a deck that I wanted to play for the big event and if a deck could meet all three, I would highly consider it. I was looking for 3 things these decks needed to do:

• A deck that can do decently into the big 3 (Lugia, Regidrago and OgerBolt)

• A deck that can do well going 1st or 2nd

• A deck that can win games on time

1. I had identified what I thought the meta might look like and Lugia and Regidrago were the two most obvious best decks in the meta at that time. Raging Bolt would be a popular pick because it's a bo1 event so it can cheese wins out of nowhere, and it just so happens to be one of the best decks in the game as well so they made part of my big 3 of decks I wanted to beat.
2. This was very important. If you have a deck that tends to lose because it went 2nd, that's a big no-no for me since we are playing in a fully bo1 system.
• So Palkia unfortunately bit the dust for me because it was rubbish going 2nd
3. This was the big one and the reason why Banette slipped down my order. The deck is really good, and at one point, I was seriously considering it,
• The biggest issue for me was the time. I know the deck isn't a fully item lock deck, I learnt it after my first tournament with it but it still takes up a lot of time, as any Gardevoir deck would.
• And I don't want my games going to time because that would mean a double game loss (DGL) and we've got 8 rounds (or so I thought) to play, we can't any afford losses that easily.

With a week or so to go, I finally arrived to my final ranking

Fifth/Last ranking:

1. Charizard
2. Terapagos
3. Lugia
4. Dragapult
5. Palkia Dusk
6. Everything else, who cares

Charizard, Terapagos and Lugia all fit the 3 criterias I was looking for in my decks. Pult didn't meet the first one because it had a really bad Raging Bolt matchup and after going to a few more locals, I had a sense that Raging Bolt would end up being the most popular deck for the event.

And as always for any event, I did my spreadsheet and well it had some interesting readings.

Iron Thorns being first was a bit concerning, I had completely forgotten about the deck and wasn't really respecting it. Raging Bolt 2nd was not a surprise to me but I did not want to be playing mirrors all the time. Banette being 3rd didn't surprise me at all, it's really good....in a bo3 setting. 

Biggest surprise was seeing Gholdengo high up there! It does have a decent matchup against the top 3. As for my picks, Zard was lower down and Terapagos was even lower but I knew I could do well with either choices.

So it came down to Charizard or Terapagos for me. I felt like I learnt as much as I could with Terapagos in quite a short span of time and felt really good with it, but I just wasn't too confident with two very prominent matchups and how I should tackle it, so that was the main reason why I jumped back to Charizard in the end. Comfort is key I suppose.

The [Original] Deck List

Back to my OG, back to Charizard we go! Now all there's left to do is make up the 60! I had a 51-card base template and these 51 cards were chosen because they were in every lists I had saved in my database so for me, if every successful lists are playing it, they are atomically included.

The Char Line

x3 Charmander

x1 Charmeleon

x2 Charizard ex

x1 Radiant Charizard

• Quite simply, the attackers of the deck
• 180 and it keeps going up with more prizers your opponent takes, and you can help them take prizes with the Dusk line!
• 3-1-2 line feels ok with the includsion of the Dusk Line, you tend to only attack with 2 Charizards most of the time and the other ones are through either Turo, Rod or Stretcher so there's plenty of ways to recycle your attackers
• Don't ever cut Charmeleon, I cannot stress how important it truly is to help save your Rare Candies and against decks that are trying to either item lock you or devolve you
• Radiant Charizard is still the best 1-prize attacker for the later part of the game

The Pidg Line

x2 Pidgey

x2 Pidgeot ex

• The best ability in the game, you can search for any card every turn, need I say more?
• 2-2 is much safter then say playing a 1-1 line like most Terapagos lists are doing because you run the risk of prizing one of said pieces and that could just falter your deck there and then

The Dusk Line

x2 Duskull

x1 Dusclops

x1 Dusknoir

• The missing pieces Charizard has been needing for a long time
• heck I even tried Fortress ex at one point for the same reason but it doesn't have any pros to give the Zard deck while Dusk line has the pros of putting damage counters and for just 1 prize
• Dusknoir helps clear out most single prizers and is usually the final piece you need to complete the Briar puzzle to win games from 4 prizes
• Dusclop is really good into VSTAR decks
• If you can set up a Duskull and a Charmander T1 against a VSTAR deck, you can always threaten a KO on their 220HP V-mon with Dusknoir + Charizard ex now hitting for 210
• And even if they have two, you can Duskull one guy, Counter Catcher + Defiance Band to knock out the other guy so after that, the first guy has to hit you and already has damage on it, making your KOs more easier

The Support System

x1 Rotom V

x1 Lumineon V

x1 Fezandipiti ex

• Rotom T1 is too good, which is why many people are running 2 Rotoms in their lists (we will see this later)
• Lumineon is so good in this deck for so many reasons
• Need Arven to set-up?
• Need Boss for game?
• Need Iono to disrupt?
• Need Briar to complete the puzzle?
• Need I say more?
• Fezandipiti pretty much replaces my ol' friend Bibarel in these Charizard lists, sure it's a two prize basic, but it's a nest ball searchable basic that is guranteed to draw you 3 cards, and sometimes Bibarel can't even draw you any cards! This is why a whole host of decks are playing Fezandipiti

Supporters

x4 Arven

x2 Iono

x2 Boss's Orders

x1 Thorton

• Since the day Charizard ex was released, I had been singing the praises of Arven, "this deck needs to play Arven". I called it from Day 1 and now a year later, everyone is playing it and it should be an easy 4-off
• 2 Iono feels more than enough for either early game hand refresher or late game hand disruption
• 2 Boss is also more than enough to gust around stuff, since you also have 2 Counter Catchers
• Thorton is a must, there will be times where your opponents will go after your Charamanders or Pidgeys and feel safe knowing they're not around, this is where Thorton shines. Throw that sucker back in and now they don't feel so safe anymore.

Items

x4 Rare Candy

x4 Ultra Ball

x4 Buddy-Buddy Poffin

x2 Nest Ball

x2 Super Rod

x1 Counter Catcher

• The 4-offs are a staple now, they make the deck work they way it does
• 2 Nest Ball seems to be the norm
• Some do play 3 and it makes sense if you're going for the Turn 1 Instant Chage play from Rotom V
• 2 Super Rod is a must, you need those energies back and your attackers or supporting mons
• Counter Catcher is too good in Charizard because you are usually behind on prizes
• 2 is generally the norm unless you are playing Prime Catcher, then 1 is the way to go

Tools

x1 Forest Seal Stone

x1 Defiance Band

• Forest Seal Stone is your VSTAR for every game, gets you one card, completes the pieces you are looking for in that turn
• Defiance Band, for the same reason as Counter Catcher, is too good in Zard since we'll be behind most of the time and you can take some big KOs on some big Vs at the perfect timing
• Also good with Radiant Charizard to hit 280!

Energies

x5 Fire Energy

• Somehow we've gone down from 6 to 5 energies, and strangely enough it still seems fine, especially with the inclusion of Night Stretcher

We've got the 51 cards, now we're left with 9 more. The last 9 spots I wanted to fill it with the most successful cards and cards I felt were tech choices for the expected meta.

Successful cards in other Zard lists that I included:

Guranteed Additions: (+4)

x1 Briar

x1 Professor Turo's Scenario

x1 Counter Catcher (2nd in the list)

x1 Night Stretcher

• Briar is just too good in Zard in combination with the Dusk Line, you will find out more about it later on
• Turo in combination with Radiant Charizard or your damaged mons or support mons feels like a must for Zard lists
• There's two ways I see people having Counter Catchers in their Zard lists
• If you play Prime Catcher, you'll play 1 Counter Catcher
• If you play any other Ace Spec, you'll play 2 Counter Catchers
• Night Stretcher is very underrated! It's double usage of recovering either energy or Pokemon is probably one good reason to go down to 5 energies

Ace Spec Choice (+1)

• Unfair Stamp
• The most played Ace Spec, 63% of the Zard lists in my database played it
• 3rd disruption in the deck, also a hand refresher
• Useless Stamp can be a lie, especially when everyone is playing Fezandipiti ex
• Hero's Cape
• This was my meta-call for the event, this seems good vs Lugia, Ogerpon to make my Charizard go up to 430HP
• It's also good for making my Pidgey/Charmander/Duskull very hard to KO early on against the likes of Greninja snipes, Dusk bombs or Pult splashes
• 0% of Zard lists played this in my database which did worry me a little bit
• Maximum Belt
• I'll put my hand up here, I actually forgot this card existed, and I played this at Nationals last May. Whoops.
• It's good for going aggressive against the Ogerpon decks early and it's my best answer to dealing with Dragapult ex, one of my worst matchups
• Just 19% of the Zard lists in my database played it
• Prime Catcher
• Guzma on an item, need I say more?
• Probably better if you play a Bibarel line or something that could get stuck easily
• Also had 19% play rate in my database

For Ace Spec, I initially chose Hero's Cape. History says, it's probably a bad choice, no-one has been successful with it but I was sure I could make it work. And with the meta as it was, I thought it was the best choice. I even told a newer player who was asked for my advice that he should play Cape. Spoiler alert, he went 7-0 in Swiss with the Cape. So I was spot-on with that judgement. However....I didn't listen to my own advice. Whoops.

Tech Choices - Meta Dependent (+2)

• I saw four choices that made sense to me
• Manaphy
• Lost Vacuum
• Mist Energy
• Temple of Sinnoh

I wrote down every matchup to see which would help me in more games:

Lost Vacuum seemed good into so many matchups so that made sense to me. As for the other one, Manaphy and Mist both had the same number, but the ones I would likely see more of, it was pulling the way of Manaphy so that was my other inclusion.

(Spoiler alert, both did not make the final list)

Consistency Boosters (+2)

• First spot was either
• Cleffa or
• 2nd Rotom V
• Second spot was either
• Collapsed Stadium
• 3rd Nest Ball
• or something else from my other choices that were mentioned above (Mist, Temple)

I initially went for the Cleffa because I was worried about the potential of Spiritomb showing up and I don't want my Rotom to do nothing. I did like having a 3rd Nest Ball so as much as it pained me to leave Collapsed out, I was ok with it.

(Spoiler alert, there was a big change later on involving the cards I just mentioned)

So this was the 60 I had settled on with 1 day to go. I was going to try my luck at the Singapore Premier Ball League event my latest Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex list........or so I thought.

The list I initially planned to go with

The [Actual] Deck List - Last minute change is not good

So with 10 minutes to go before the deadline for submission was up, my online friends were talking about my friend Isaiah Cheville's Charizard list from Louisville Regional where he got 13th! After looking at it, I thought....maybe I should just run with it. Zaya and another of my friends Francesco Caterino both got top 32 results with it, and it seems good for a bo1 tournament, so why not?

The changes were:

- Hero's Cape

- Cleffa

- Lost Vacuum

- Manaphy

+ Maximum Belt

+ Rotom V (2nd)

+ Roxanne

+ Collapsed Stadium

I still wasn't too confident with my own list. I did like the 2nd of having a 2nd Rotom to help with my starting hand since I was planning to go 1st. I was ok losing Manaphy. The only ones I wasn't sure I should cut was Lost Vacuum and Hero's Cape. Having Roxanne did give me a 3rd disruption at least. Collapsed...I honestly wasn't sure how it would help other than getting rid of bad benches and disrupting Lugia and Terapagos. 

Now looking back, adding Rotom and Roxanne was fine, but I should have kept Hero's Cape and Lost Vacuum, those two cards would have really helped me in my games as we'll find out.

The list I ended up using

Tournament Run - Unannounced change is also not good

And now for the first big surprise of the day. We knew that top cut is now Top 32, unfortunately it was also bo1 for top cut so that was bad. But we were all very sure that since we had 400+ person tournaments last season, it's surely an 8-round swiss tournament.

It was not. They announced it was 7-rounds swiss! I was a bit confused by that and now I had to re-calculate everything I had just been talking to my friends. We had been trying to figure out what the likely results would be for an 8-round swiss and what we got was this:

• 7-0 -> 1-2 Players
• 6-1 -> 13 Players
• 5-2 -> 45 Players
• Doing the maths, Likely 17 6-2 players will make it in, meaning 28 players will bubble out

But now that we've got a 7-round swiss, I had to do some quick maths to try to figure things out and this is what I got:

• 7-0 -> 3 Players
• 6-1 -> 22 Players
• 5-2 -> 67 Players
• Doing the maths, Likely just 7 5-2 players will make it in, which means a grand total of 60 players will bubble out! We're looking at a huge bubble, this just did not seem right to me.

R1 (L) vs Zen Wang [4/3/0] - Raging Bolt ex/Teal Mask Ogerpon ex (0-1)

• First round of the day, no idea who my opponent is or what he might be playing so I had to go first blind, I'm more likely to hit a matchup I want to go first then second...
• Turns out he was a Raging Bolt player, so that didn't work for me since I have to go 2nd in this matchup
• My opening hand was quite bad and I had to bench Rotom just to draw more stuff
• Also saw that my Max Belt was prized so I couldn't go aggressive and take KOs on them early if they had Charm....and they did
• I was so behind I knew I had to go disruption route with Roxanne and Iono
• I took two KOs on back to back, down to 3-2 if I remember correctly
• I went for a risky play, put Rad Zard and left it at the active, hoping he'd just KO it so I could Iono him to one
• It worked, he KOed Rad Zard, no gust, down to 1 prize
• Iono to 1, KO his Raging Bolt, and all I had to do was hope there is no response
• He draws Sada right away and KOs my Zard for game. Yikes.

What a horrible way to start the tournament, I had a slow start, some bad prizes and still came within 1 KO to win. It was such a good matchup for me too so it hurt to lose the first round in that manner. Now I knew I had to go 6-1 to have a shot of making top 32 cut.

R2 (W) vs Shawn Tay Yang Sheng [0/3/0 Eliminated] - Raging Bolt ex/Teal Mask Ogerpon ex (1-1)

• Again, I didn't know my opponent so I had to go blind first
• and again, I got punished because it was a Raging Bolt player
• Had another very weird looking opening hand, no Charmander or Pidgey on board Turn 1
• Did my prize check and well...Max Belt is prized again!
• Opponent also had a slow start thankfully so I could go double Poffin the next turn and start setting up
• After the weird first turn, the game was normal and the game went according to how I wrote in my matchup concept:
• They take KO (6-5)
• I respond with Charizard ex KO on a 2-prizer (4-5)
• They KO my Charizard ex (4-3) - This 4-3 prize map is the big number for me to execute the DBC plan, Dusknoir + Briar Combination
• Dusknoir their Radiant Greninja (3-3), then Briar to KO their active ex to win the game

R3 (W) vs Steven Ong [1/2/0 Drop] - Roaring Moon ex (2-1)

• I lost the coin flip this time and I was ready to finally go 2nd and see what I can do, but my opponent chooses to go 2nd. I'm thinking I'm up against my 3rd Raging Bolt in a row
• And they started Fezandipiti ex so I was thinking that's what they played
• Another weird looking hand, I had to leave my Rotom active, use Ultra Ball and Nest Ball to get some of my guys down and hope the Rotom draw would help me get there
• They discarded a Dark energy for their Earther Vessel so it's not Raging Bolt but Roaring Moon, the game plan is still the sam
• Still not much going on with my draws
• The game came down to a very weird situation for me, I had to attempt to Dusk bomb twice (one on active Moon with 30 damage left), one on Radiant Greninja and then Counter Catcher for the final KO. I whiffed what I needed from Fezan (no Pidgeot on board, it got KOed by Moon ex)
• I then figured out that he only had one route to win, he was out of Dark Patches and his Moon ex had no energies
• He would have to find Sada to his Roaring Moon, discard 2 more Ancient and get either heads of Pokemon Catcher or straight up Prime Catcher on my Lumineon to take the game
• He actually does get all of that and beats me

Here I am, a little shell shocked that I've started 1-2. Thinking to myself "what is going on today???". And then my opponent tells me, "are you staying on to play the whole event?". I told him yes because I still wanted to win the whole thing (somehow) and he gave me the win! He just wanted to play for fun and get the Fan Rotom promo and then leave by Round 3. So I ended up getting the win, thanks man!

The Promo we all got for playing

R4 (L) vs Izzul Haziq Bin Murad [5/2/0] - Terapagos ex/Dusknoir (2-2)

• I had an idea Izzul would play Terapagos, I've seen him testing it at locals so this is where I knew if I won the coin flip, I'm 100% going first and this time it would be an advantage for me
• Did win the coin flip....and then I saw my hand and I couldn't believe what I'm seeing, it's the 4th bad hand in a row
• He took the first two prizes because I had to use Instant Charge two turns in a row
• I noticed one of my Duskulls was prized which made things really difficult as I needed to have at least one of them on board to threaten the perfect turn (Dusk Bomb + KO and maybe Briar for game)
• He kept going after my lone Duskull, even when I had to use Thorton to get the KOed one back
• Not much I can do, I couldn't set up my board and he got the winning KOs

So my hopes to make top 32 cut are realistically over and now I'm just playing NOT to get eliminated from the tournament and try to at the very least, get a top 64 placement to get some extra points (10 LP vs 5 LP, it could matter). There's still a chance I might also miss that since about 20 of us x-2s might also bubble out of Top 64.

R5 (W) vs Sebastian Ho [2/3/0 Eliminated] - Gardevoir ex (3-2)

• Now every game is a win-or-out of the tournament, I didn't want to get eliminated this early
• My opponent made me go first, I was getting a bit worried until he flipped over a Ralts
• I finally had a decent starting hand, Poffin + Nest Ball and Arven for next turn to guaranteed a Turn 2 Pidgeot, something I hadn't done so far this tournament
• My opponent makes a cruical misplay that pretty much won me the game
• He goes for Arven and searches out TM Devolution and my heart sank:
• I prized one Rare Candy and I already had a Pidgeot and Charizard up so only one of them could go back up as I was holding my last Candy in hand
• So if he goes for the TM Devo play, I will pretty much lose this game because I was in this weird situation where I needed to also use Candy to get Dusknoir to pull off a potential Briar play
• He chooses to attack with Drifloon, just missing the KO on Zard by 30 (he has Munkidori for next turn)
• After that turn, I was 3 prizes down, his board was only single prizers and I made this ridiculous comeback play where I needed to draw into Briar, Dusclops to bomb his damaged Drifloon, and get my Zard up to use Briar for the 2 prizes to finish the game
• The issue is, I was missing Briar, Candy and a way to get Zard up so I had to draw into them somehow
• So I took a risk by using Super Rod to recover just Lumineon V, I chose not to shuffle in my Charizard or any of my other Fire energies (I still had 1 more in deck) in case I drew into a Rescue Stretcher to give me a second out
• Fezandipit gave me Candy, Stretcher and Ultra Ball (for my Lumineon -> Briar)! I was so stunned it took me a few seconds to realize I had game there and then. (Dusclops into Briar then Candy Zard for KO)

Trying to survive the dreaded x-3 elimination

R6 (W) vs Mohamad Elias Bin Ibrahim  [3/3/0 Eliminated] - Klawf (4-2)

• Before this game, I was talking to my friend Gabriel and he told me he got donked by a Klawf player the previous round so imagine my surprise when I saw I as up against Elias, the very same person he just played against (I kinda guessed he would play Klawf anyway)
• I knew as long as I had two benched Pokemon, I should be fine
• I started Lumineon V, the only time I was happy to see it. I did have a Duskull in hand too but I knew I couldn't put that as my active
• I also had Turo in hand so my Lumineon was going back to me either way
• I didn't have the best of starts but managed to recover enough to keep pace with him
• Had a big turn where I had to Iono him and hope he didn't draw into everything he needed to take the win
• He whiffed
• I had my Dusknoir to KO his Iron Bundle (not sure why it was still on the bench), then Briar to take KO on his Klawf for the win

I survived the elimination phase so I got to play the last round! But at this point, I was still feeling a bit down, my deck just wasn't co-operating with me. Out of 6 starts so far, only once did I have a good opening hand, it's been a real grindy tournament so far and to be very honest, I was feeling very defeated. I did appreciate Bryan telling me to keep my chin up before the previous round started, he was judging this time and could probably tell I was quite down with how the day had been.

R7 (W) vs Eugene Lee [4/3/0] - Raging Bolt ex/Teal Mask Ogerpon ex (5-2)

• Opponent won the coin flip and chooses 2nd, I kinda knew where this was going, another Bolt
• Yet again, not a good starting hand but at least I knew I didn't prize Max Belt, it was in my starting hand this time
• Had a slow start so yet again I didn't get a Pidgeot up in a game (3rd times I believe)
• My opponent whiffed an attack Turn 1 so that got me back into the game, especially since I drew Arven and Poffin off my earlier Rotom
• Game after that goes according to my DBC plan
• He goes down to 3 prizes while I'm at 4 prizes
• I drew into Briar and Dusknoir, with Candy already in hand and my Charizard ex still hanging around, Dusk bomb his Greninja, Briar and KO him with 1 minute to go in the round!

Final Result: 5-2

Final Placement: 70th out of 409 (Only 126 players finished)

Won my last three rounds to go 5-2. We knew 5-2 was the bare minimum to make cut and I had a small hope, maybe my resistance isn't that bad but I kinda guessed it was (we had no way of checking it unlike last season).

And then I saw the standings once people started celebrating that they were in cut and I couldn't help but laugh out loud (hey it's an LOL moment) because I didn't make cut. But not just that.

I also didn't make top 64.

I was 70th.

Yes, 70th out of 409 players. That's my worst placement in a major tournament since TPC took over but I've gone x-3 twice before, I was x-2 here yet I'm 70th. I was so puzzled by this. How big was this bubble? I mean I knew there was going to be a big bubble but I had completely forgotten about it at that point of time.

The highest resistant 5-2 finished 25th (funnily enough it was Alester who won the whole thing too so congrats to him!) with a 69 OMW%. The lowest 5-2? 80th with 41%. So I'm not even in the middle of the pack, I'm at the back with 49%. You know it's a really bad day when you can't even crack into the top 64 just for 5 extra points. Everyone seemed to be shocked when they asked me where I placed after  I told them I finished 5-2. It is what it is I suppose.

Hey on the plus side, I've now scored points in 10 events out of 10 playing Charizard ex! The 100% points streak continues.

MVP of the day is Briar. Of the 4 games I won on my own, the final KOs were all from Briar, with a little help from our ghost buddies.

As for the last minute switch of the 4 cards. 

• 2nd Rotom did put in work, but there were times when I thought, if that was Cleffa I would only be losing 1 prize and not 2
• Collapsed Stadium did nothing as I suspected, should have been Lost Vacuum
• At no point did I go...how I wished I had Manaphy so that was a good cut and Roxanne did help me out to get the perfect late game board state so that was a good change
• But by far the worst change was cutting Hero's Cape for Max Belt. Cape could have saved my Zard in the first loss and prevented my lone Duskull from getting KOed by their Dusk bomb in the second loss. And how many times did I use Max Belt? Just once and only because Defiance Band was prized, and even then, I still could have used a Counter Catcher to KO someone else

Lesson learnt, don't make last minute changes without talking through it with anyone.

What's Next? - This new change is very bad

So what's next after this? 

Actually I don't know either. We don't know when the next Great Ball League event is. We don't know when the next Ultra Ball League event is. We probably will not know when the Master Ball League event will be, which kinda sucks because I'm heading off to the US in June and I'd love to know if I need to buy cards this season or if I can just not bother and play the same deck the whole way.

At least they said that the new system will reward consistency, I hope that is true.

I went back to the venue to check out how top cut would pan out and I had been telling everyone that my prediction was that finals would be decided by a very bad game. Why? Because our top cuts are now bo1.

And sure enough, finals was decided by a bad game because one side had a bad start and that was it. Jeremy, who finished top 8, was also eliminated from the tournament from a dead starting hand and he was my odd-on favourite to win the whole thing. Possibly the best player in Singapore playing the best deck? Who can beat him? Variance, that's what.

I can already say I'm not a fan of bo1 top cut. I hated it when I first heard about it, and I hate it even more after seeing these games. Wouldn't mind having more games honestly. Come on TPC Japan, why can't we have Japan's system? 

• Japan's system is say around 7 swiss rounds, 
• anyone with x-2 moves on to Day 2, 
• more swiss rounds in Day 2, 8 in the last Tokyo Champions League (we could do maybe 2 to 3), 
• and then Top 16 cut. 
• All bo1 I believe so at most, someone who got into Day 2 and missed out on cut would have played 15 games in total.

What about the new TPCi system?

• 8-9 swiss rounds (bo3)
• Then, according to attendance, about 3-4 more swiss rounds let's say in that ballpark
• Then an asymmetrical top cut (could be top 8, could be top 13, could be top 18) -> this one doesn't work for us, because we have no ties
• All in all, these players get to play at the very least, if they just missed cut, about 24 games in total?

More games always seems good to me. So why do we only have 7 games at the very least for those who just missed cut. Sure maybe we have a small amount of players in each of our regions but we've got a 400-person tournament, surely we can do more than that. I mean bo1 already is quite painful enough, you'd think having more games could fix the variance, not less. I'm not sure why TPC Japan is still giving us this system.

Terapagos ended up winning the Premier Ball League, and it was my 2nd choice! Gholdengo finished 2nd and I thought it was a good sleeper pick, and there were 3 in cut as well. Top cut was quite interesting, because almost half the players, I genuinely did not know who they were, and I'm supposed to be the guy that knows everyone here being the stats man and all. 

But I suppose that's bo1 for you, literally anyone can have a good day and get a good result. I had four good friends make top 32 cut and they all fell for very different reasons, be it a dead starting hand, important pieces being prized, being at a disadvantage in the mirror match or having a game loss (aka well tournament is over because it's a bo1 top cut). 

Let's see what does indeed happen next because nobody has any idea. This was a long one so if you did read all of this, I do thank you for your taking precious time out of your day just to see me talk about Pokemon TCG! 

Bonus little content, but here's the meta of the top 126, aka the people who finished all 7 rounds and scored points: