Season 1 of the 2024-2025 season (yeah I'm still getting used to the whole season in a season thing) is done and we've just finished the 3 Ultra Ball events that happened in late December and early January, aka my favourite time of the year because it's my birthday week haha!
For those who are curious about what happened in GBL Season 1 and how everything works, you can check it out here (some of the results are a bit outdated because of the points changes). I'll do a quick re-cap of the 3 Ultra Ball League events that happened here, these are our versions of a League Cup that TPCi circuits have.
One big note I do need to share before I continue, we currently do not know what the points kicker are for literally ANY event, what is said on the official website is not what the officials are following from what we've seen on the results page. So the previous GBL recap page is a bit useless now because I had to re-do points for 6 of the 9 events and some of them, even though they had the same amount of people playing, had different people scoring points.
ULTRA BALL LEAGUE SEASON 1 RECAP
Ultra Ball League 1 - Kreta Ayer CC - 113 Players - 21st December 2024
Winning Decklist: Raging Bolt ex/Teal Mask Ogerpon ex - Aiman Roslan
(no decklist)
Points Scorers:
Walk In Players - 25 out of 78 Players (32.05% chance of getting in)
Notes:
- THERE IS A TOP CUT! For this event which featured 113 players, we had a top 8 cut. It was still bo1 but with extra 10 minutes, 7 Swiss rounds
- Speaking of which, two top 8 matches did not even play out. One player did not show up as he had left in Round 7, and another was given a game loss for incorrect decklist
- Fun little note, the recorded games are not up yet but I got to choose every game that went on stream after Round 2. Having that power was fun, hopefully the games were fun to watch too. I'll post a link here when it does go live.
Ultra Ball League 2 - KouritenSG - 64 Players - 4th January 2025
Winning Decklist: Gholdengo ex - Terry Tai
Points Scorers:
Walk In Players - 12 out of 103 Players (11.65% chance of getting in)
Notes:
- Top 4 cut here because of just 64 players but still was 7 Swiss rounds
- Once again one top cut game wasn't played out due to a game loss for decklist error
- The streak is broken! Terry is the first person to win two different local official TPC events since Isogai, we had this streak going since the first season
Ultra Ball League 3 - Rowell Video - 64 Players - 5th January 2025
Winning Decklist: Gholdengo ex - Toh You Jie
Points Scorers:
Walk In Players - 13 out of 70 Players (18.57% chance of getting in)
Notes:
- Top 4 cut here again (64 players), was 7 Swiss rounds
- Alester backed up his Premier Ball League win with this UBL win, and re-taking the top spot in the standings
So now for the fun stats and the first one is for wins since there's only 3 events, I'll just write it down here
Wins:
Gholdengo - 2 (66.7%)
Raging Bolt/Teal Mask Ogerpon - 1 (33.3%)
Here's the chart for the Top Cut decks (top 8 for UBL 1, top 4 for UBL 2 and 3)
We sure like our Gholdengos don't we? Of the 5, two were by the top 2 players in the standings with two entries as well!
And because I'm curious about the big picture, here's the chart for the decks that scored points (top 32 for UBL 1, top 16 for UBL 2 and 3)
Regidrago still was the most popular overall, followed by Charizard which has always been quite popular here. Gardevoir was actually the most played deck in all 3 events if I remember correctly so no surprises to see it right up there.
Speaking of which, I did get all the decks down for my stats because of....well....I didn't get to play in any of the 3 Ultra Ball League events so I had plenty of time to get all the decks down for all 3 events so here you go! 241 total players throughout the 3 events:
For the others, it was too much to write down so I just copy pasted this from my excel:
So to nobody's surprise, Gardevoir was the most played deck in all 3 UBLs, just beating Charizard by 1. There are a lot of die-hard Gardevoir players but many top players also chose to play it so it shows how good it was, even though 2 top 4 finishes.
Regidrago was the 3rd best, which isn't a big surprise to me. It is still the best deck in the format but maybe it's just not the play in a bo1 setting, especially when there are still so many Raging Bolt players around, and it did win the first UBL!
Here's my first prediction for the next season of GBLs. Gardevoir will likely stay in the top 2 spot with Dragapult about to join it right up there, it was the 5th most played. I did combine the Dusknoir version with the Iron Thorns build for this.
Now for the next stat, I wanted to show how many players got to play in these UBLs. But as you will see, it's a hard one to quanitfy.
We definitely know the number of players who played in 1 or 2 UBLs but it's so hard to know the actual number for those who didn't play. I used the number from those in the current standings but the thing is, how many actually did apply to play in these events and how many didn't? We don't know that.
I can have a rough idea to say who actually did try to walk in for those events and got rejected all 3 times (I was one of them), but as for applying straight up, I have no clue. The other issue is, as you may or may not have heard, there's this whole multiple-account nonsense going around where somebody is applying with 59 accounts and taking up spots from us players so that will make the number even harder to find. Firstly, screw you dude. Secondly, don't be a dumbass and buy accounts, you will get caught. And thirdly, clearly this shows this system is not working.
SEASON STANDINGS AFTER UBL SEASON 1
I wanted to showcase how the UBLs affected the standings so I made a new tab on my excel just for this. The first one is how many points the top 30 players in standings scored in these UBLs. The 2nd tab is showing the % of their total points that came from the UBLs (the green numbers are those who scored 50% or more of their points from UBLs, the red is a big fat zero %). And the third is showing how many of these UBLs the top 30 players in the standings played.
I think it's safe to say the top two guys, Alester and Terry, are pretty much set for their first Worlds invite with the big gap they've got to everyone else. Alester is 180 points ahead of the 5th place player (Ben) while Terry is 165 points ahead of 5th. Just as a reminder, it's the top 4 players in points that gets a Worlds invite.
So the top 2 are in their own little battle this season. What about the rest?
The two finalist from the first UBL, Jeremy and Aiman, now currently occupy the 3rd and 4th spots in the standings. Both of them had a huge jump in points from their finals finish, Aiman especially with 80% of his points coming from his UBL win. The difference 4th to 8th are just 40 points, a win and a top 8 finish at a GBL can change how the order looks like.
A fun little note, the other two players who finished as finalists in a UBL (Yi Quan and Liang Jun) hadn't even scored a point before their final finishes so they too had a huge jump up the order. So this just shows us how important the points are in these UBL events compared to the GBL events. Not much changed during the 9 GBL events but a lot sure changed from the 3 UBL events.
But you also need some luck to even play in these events. If you look at the top 30 standings, 4 players didn't play in any of them and they all dropped in the standings. As did the 6 players who did play in a UBL event but didn't score a point in them. So you need some luck to either win the elected lottery or the walk-in lottery to play and when you do, you have to make it count.
GBL season 2 should start in February while UBL season 2 is slated for sometime mid-March to mid-April.
MY ULTRA BALL LEAGUE SEASON 1 "RECAP"
So here's how my games went for this first Ultra Ball League season 1 went:
Ultra Ball League #1 - Kreta Ayer CC
- Date: 21st December 2024
- Status: Walk-In -> Lost Lottery
- Deck: -
Ultra Ball League #2 - KouritenSG
- Date: 4th January 2025
- Status: Walk-In -> Lost Lottery
- Deck: -
Ultra Ball League #3 - Rowell Video
- Date: 5th January 2025
- Status: Walk-In -> Lost Lottery
- Deck: -
Yup. I applied for all 3 Ultra Ball League events. Declined for all 3 events. Tried to walk in for all 3 events. Lost the lottery for all 3 of those events too. I didn't even get to play Pokemon on my birthday week, how sad is that? I just want to play!
Sure I'm not the only one who didn't get to play in any of the 3 UBLs, in fact a few of my friends are in the same boat. But I can't help but feel a bit frustrated to miss out. I had such a good run of results going including the 4 GBLs and I thought, I just need one good UBL run to put me back into the hunt for the invite race. And I didn't even get that chance. In fact I think I might be the highest placed active player in the standings who didn't play (didn't see Dominic Lo around at all so I don't think he's active).
Missing those 3 events puts me in a real awkward spot. I know what my planned schedule is like for the month of March so there is a chance that I might miss another 1 or 2 UBL, this time not by choice. So if that happens, I'm left with possibly just 1-2 UBLs to get in for the 2nd season and the other 3 for the 3rd season, and I already know how difficult it is just to get into one. At least we now know that GBL winners are guaranteed a spot in UBL so that's my aim now, win a GBL event.
That Worlds invite chase is looking less likely for me this time around sadly but this time it's out of my control. I can't score points if I can't play and it's not as if I'm choosing not to play. I'm the type that will play everywhere and anyway, I just need a chance and so far it hasn't happened when it matters most. I know I can finish in the top 4 in the standings, I've already done it once before in 2023 and I feel like I've improved a lot since then.
But with how the season has shaped up, the first two spots seemingly locked up, I'm now trying to chase for the 3rd/4th spot with 100+ others doing the same. Or at least I hope they are, because some don't seem to want the points but instead help their friends chances by giving them wins, I've seen it happen a few times already, even at these UBLs. It feels really difficult to compete fairly with all these in mind, let alone having people apply for these events just to get the promo and drop after going 0-3.
I still want to head back to Worlds and compete at that level, after coming so close to the Day 2 spot in 2023, I need to know if I can really compete with the best. But it doesn't look like it might happen this season. I still have the worry of wondering if I can play in our biggest event of the season, the Master Ball League, aka our Nationals event. Not just the worry of the lottery but also the fact that I'll be overseas for most of June and it's slated to be in June so I might not even get to play in it.
Which means I might only have one other way to earn my second Worlds invite this year...
