Dawning of a new Zard era - Singapore 2025-2026 Season 2 Recap

Season 2 of the 2025-26 season here in Singapore is done and we're straight into Season 3 already with GBLs happening this weekend. But I still wanted to do a quick re-cap of the previous season, where I played Dawn Zard for all but one event, and that one event sure enough was my worst performance of the whole lot because I played Pult Dusknoir, what's new haha.

Dawn Zard exploded onto the scene ever since Nicolai Stiborg's win in Stuttgart back in December, the first event to feature the new Phantasmal Flames cards and also the last TPCi event of the year 2025. 

But Dawn Zard isn't new to me, I've actually been testing it out for a while now and had a list ready for the Premier Ball League back in November, big thanks to Oscar Madsen for helping out with the list and all the times I've been testing the deck the past few months. 

But I didn't get any of my 4 Dawns in time to play it. But I did for the start of the first GBL of the season and I would end up playing it for the whole season. And I think I can safely say it was my best "season" so far since this new format of seasons within a season started here in TPC Southeast Asia.

The Dawn Zard Lists

I tried all sorts of builds of Dawn Zard but these 13 were the ones I put more time with and tested games online with. There were a few others were I tested maybe a few games with but didn't bother to follow up with after a while so I didn't keep my record with them. But for these lists, I've got at least 300+ games recorded on my excel for them!

But here's the first one and this was before PFL was released, just to show the first build of Dawn Zard and what I wanted to play for our PBL:

v1.1 - My initial PBL 2025 list

v1.2 - Stuttgart Winning List

55 Games on Record: 41-14 (74.55% Win Rate)

The base list, the only thing I didn't like was not having Pidgeotto against item lock decks. It was a good list to learn how the deck worked and all the ins-and-outs of the deck and I picked it up really quickly. 

v1.3 - My edit aka the 3 GBL winning list

130 Games on Record: 93-37 (71.54% Win Rate)

Probably the list I spent the most time with, I played this list for 8 of the GBLs I was in and just once in a UBL. I honestly didn't miss the 4th Nest Ball all that much but I did understand needed it for more consistency as I did have a few too many bad starts which got me to change it after a long while. This list did just win the last UBL of our latest season (2.4) thanks to Ian so it still works!

v1.4 - Oscar's fun list that won a Cup

11 Games on Record: 5-6 (45.45% Win Rate)

It was a fun idea but I've got more losses than wins with this deck so need I say more? The Clefairy tech sadly didn't help out the Pult matchup, did help out with stuff like Absol and Khan at least! 

v1.5 - Unfair Stamp build

5 Games on Record: 3-2 (60% Win Rate)

I saw this Unfair Stamp build going around and I had to try it out. I didn't like it as much as the Prime Catcher build, I've just never been a big fan of Unfair Stamp because my opponents somehow always draws out of it so I've never trusted it. I'd rather play a more useful ace spec that helps me win than a card that attempts to help make my opponent lose and usually never does that.

v1.6 - Azul's edit from the winning Stuttgart list

7 Games on Record: 5-2 (71.43% Win Rate)

Anytime Azul GG is testing a deck I like, I'll be paying close attention to it! So of course I had to try out his version of the list. It was fine but again, I didn't really like the Unfair Stamp version of the deck. And my biggest issue with the deck was Ditto just not being Klefki, I was missing it a few times and I never really found the need to use Ditto in most of my games, it felt a bit useless when we had so many outs to get Terapagos ex down anyway.

v1.7 - Jackson's list

11 Games on Record: 9-2 (81.81% Win Rate)

When a top Zard player is talking about the list, you better listen to him so sure enough I paid close attentio to Jackson Ford's guide when he spoke about Dawn Zard. It was just the one change and similar to what I had been running but keeping the Nest Ball and cutting the 2nd Iono. Not sure why I didn't put in more game time with this list, it was doing really well for me. 

v1.8 - Korea winning list

25 Games on Record: 20-5 (80% Win Rate)

I saw the winning list from the Korean League, and saw just one Fan Rotom which made me think....wait why did I do this the whole time?  My first Dawn Zard list only had the one Fan Rotom and it was working fine initially anyway! This list got me very close to a Top 8 finish at the 3rd UBL. 

v1.9 - Trying out Black Belt's Training in online events

19 Games on Record: 15-4 (78.95% Win Rate)

I had seen someone testing Black Belt's Training in Dawn Zard and it got me thinking, was that the missing piece I needed? In theory it felt like a good idea, being able to KO Gholdengo much earlier which can be an issue sometimes and also KOing Absol out of nowhere is always a nice surprise. So I really liked the idea and might explore it more going into the new format. I got 5th out of 289 players in an online tournament with this list, my best "big online tourney" result in a while.

v2.0 - Birmingham Top 8 list aka the one with 1 Pidgey

31 Games on Record: 23-8 (74.19% Win Rate)

So I knew about this change before this event happened as Oscar had mentioned about it. It felt alright but I was a bit worried since I'm playing in a bo1 format and prizing the one Pidgey can be quite painful. After a while I got used to it and it actually didn't feel as bad as I thought, except against decks like Gardevoir since you can't just search out a Jet out of nowhere with no Pidgeot in play.

v2.1 - Merida Top 32 list (Waterpon build but no Sparkling Crystal with 1-0-1 Dusknoir)

4 Games on Record: 1-3 (25% Win Rate)

Ever since I got back from my holiday trip in Japan, suddenly all my friends were on Dawn Zard too but not the one I was playing, they were on the Waterpon build. I had tested it before and never really liked it so I had to try it out again. And well I was right, I still didn't like it.

v2.2 - Toronto 19th list (Waterpon build with Sparkling Crystal, no Dusknoir)

6 Games on Record: 3-3 (50% Win Rate)

I tried out the Sparkling Crystal build and I still didn't like it. My biggest issue was the fact that it was quite a useless Ace Spec and this build felt more like a cheese to win kinda deck. The Munkidori + Psyduck was nice but I still lost to a Pult deck with them.

v2.3 - Toronto 25th list (With Jamming tower)

6 Games on Record: 5-1 (83.33% Win Rate)

I gave up on the Waterpon build, I just didn't like it. I stumbled upon this build with 3 stadiums which made me wonder if that was the answer to my Watchtower issue. It honestly felt alright when I tested it, but I didn't like that this list had no Klefki. The Jamming Tower did come in handy in certain situations which got me thinking of whether I could explore with it more in the future.

 

2025-26 Season 2 - 11 GBLs + 4 UBLs

 As you might remember, I've already spoken about the first few events that happened so I won't talk much about those 3 GBL wins since it's already on this post.

GBL #13 Season 2 @ Dueller's Point - 3rd/48 - 4/1/0 (+12 LP)

• R1 W Gholdengo ex/Lunatone
• R2 L Marnie's Grimmsnarl ex/Froslass
• R3 W N's Zoroark ex
• R4 W Ceruledge ex/Lunatone
• R5 W Gholdengo ex/Joltik Box

List

I thought my R2 loss to Grimm would cost me a good points day but thankfully my opponent did well and her score dragged me up to a 3rd place finish, and 12 more points which helps my points tally and my push for the worlds invite! Every other game other than that one went really well for me. 

After that I missed a number of GBLs because I was in Japan for 2 weeks. So my first one back was literally hours after landing back in Singapore.

GBL #23 Season 2 @ Card Connect - 4th/40 - 5/1/0 (+12 LP)

• R1 L N's Zoroark ex
• R2 W Gholdengo ex/Lunatone
• R3 W Mega Lopunny ex/Dusknoir
• R4 W Dragapult ex/Dusknoir
• R5 W Dragapult ex/Dusknoir
• R6 W Festival Lead Box

List

This was a bit of a lucky run for me. The first game was not so lucky, I got hit with that racist card Watchtower when I prized one of my stadiums and just got stuck for too long. I needed a lot of luck to win my R3 game and I started off very slow and I got lucky that both my Pult opponents didn't have the best of set-ups/misplayed. And the festival box I had to go outside the box and play very differently to squeak a win out of that one. And thankfully my efforts weren't wasted with another Top 4 finish!

GBL #26 Season 2 @ Deckard Gaming - 3rd/32 - 4/1/0 (+12 LP)

• R1 W Cynthia's Garchomp ex
• R2 W Dragapult ex/Dusknoir
• R3 W Gardevoir ex/Jellicent ex
• R4 L Charizard ex/Noctowl
• R5 W Gholdengo ex/Lunatone

List

This was the first GBL in the whole season where I finally made a change to my list, cutting an Iono for the 4th Nest Ball to help with some awkward starts I've been having. This was the first event where I finally lost in the mirror match, but it was to Ian who had also won a few GBLs with the list I gave him, I had a slow start and I just couldn't catch up in time. I once again needed some luck in the last round vs Gholdengo to get the win and luckily my opponent didn't get the Turo he needed.

GBL #29 Season 2 @ Concept City - 14th/32 - 3/2/0

• R1 L Alakazam/Dudunsparce
• R2 W Slaking ex/Pidgeot ex
• R3 W Charizard ex/Noctowl
• R4 L Charizard ex/Noctowl/Wellspring Ogerpon ex
• R5 W Mega Lopunny ex/Dusknoir

List

My worst performance with Dawn Zard so far. I had a complete dead hand vs Alakazam, having to lose 4 prizes after just 3 turns and me not doing much is not a good thing, especially with just 1 iono in the list. My other lost was to the Waterpon version of Dawn Zard, I had another slow start and I just couldn't comeback in time. Just the way it goes sometimes.

UBL #1 Season 2 @ Aloft Novena - 15th/299 - 6/2/0 (+12 LP)

• R1 W Bye
• R2 W Mega Kangaskhan ex/Bouffalant
• R3 W Dragapult ex/Dusknoir
• R4 L Gholdengo ex/Lunatone
• R5 L Greninja ex/Pidgeot ex
• R6 W Flareon ex/Noctowl
• R7 W Raging Bolt ex/Teal Mask Ogerpon ex
• R8 W Raging Bolt ex/Teal Mask Ogerpon ex

List

This one was a weird event, I had like 5 bad starts and survived 3 of them. But of course the other 2, I just got done in. The Gholdengo played just drew literally everything they needed and I only got my first prize after they had taken 3, so I didn't really have much of a shot of winning that one. The Greninja game was painful, that hand didn't look that good so I chose not to Iono them and it cost me, and they literally had everything in hand to board wipe my two Manders and it cost me the game and I couldn't comeback from that. 

Shoutout to Klefki for winning me in R3 and R7 games! I chose to play the one Fan Rotom for this event and honestly, other than one game when it was prized, I didn't mind this change all that much...initially. But hey finally my first Top 16 finish at an Ultra Ball League event!

GBL #30 Season 2 @ Deckard Gaming - 4th/32 - 4/1/0 (+12 LP)

• R1 W N's Zoroark ex
• R2 L Marnie's Grimmsnarl ex/Froslass
• R3 W Roaring Moon ex/Brute Bonnet
• R4 W N's Zoroark ex
• R5 W Dragapult ex/Dusknoir

List

Another GBL at Deckard, another Top 4 finish but this time I didn't get the points since I had hit my BFL so I needed a Top 2 finish at a GBL to score points. My one loss was to Grimm, again. Another slow start and not much I could have done about it. 

Shoutout to my R4 opponent Zach who gave me the win even though he was in the better spot in that game (we went to time). He does have his Worlds invite already so that was a cool thing from him to do for me. Also another shoutout to Nick for winning this event with Dawn Zard, apparently he watched my video and it helped him out a lot so that was nice to hear!

UBL #2 Season 2 @ One Punggol - 28th/303 - 6/2/0 (+9 LP)

• R1 W Gholdengo ex/ESP
• R2 W Alakazam/Dudunsparce
• R3 L Gholdengo ex/Lunatone
• R4 W Ceruledge ex/Lunatone
• R5 W Gardevoir ex/Jellicent ex
• R6 L Gardevoir ex
• R7 W Gardevoir ex
• R8 W Charizard ex/Noctowl

List

This was the only UBL out of the four I was elected in. I had to use my bye for the first one just to guarantee I could play. Both my losses here really sucked. I dead drew once again to a Gholdengo player, but this time because he used Iono Turn 1 and gave me a hand full of nothing! The other loss to Gardevoir really annoyed me. 

His watchtower came at an awkward time and he played a bit too slow to the point where I was rushing to take cards just to make sure we didn't get a DGL and I think that actually hurt me more as he ended up being in a position to win. Had I not rushed, perhaps I might have been in a position to win the game. Still I rather lose a game than take the DGL, my stance on it is still very clear.

UBL #3 Season 2 @ Nee Soon CC - 10th/300 - 7/1/0 (+12 LP)

• R1 W Gardevoir ex
• R2 L Dragapult ex/Dusknoir
• R3 W Ceruledge ex/Lunatone
• R4 W Raging Bolt ex/Teal Mask Ogerpon ex
• R5 W Mega Kangaskhan ex/Bouffalant
• R6 W Gardevoir ex
• R7 W Greninja ex/Pidgeot ex
• R8 W Gholdengo ex/Lunatone

List

So going into this event, I didn't even know what to expect since I had been ill for the past week, and I actually had a fever the night before the event so I didn't even know if I could make it! Trying to play 8 rounds and dealing with all those issues sucked, it was not fun at all. So imagine my surprise to go 7-1 while dealing with a headache, a runny nose and coughs! 

My first X-1 score in a UBL but sadly, I only finished 10th because I lost in R2 and my Rounds 6 and 7 opponents dropped immediately after I beat them, can you people stop doing that! Not much I could have done in the R2 game, I just dead drew and my board got destroyed, especially since I prized Charmeleon in that game. The 1 Fan Rotom didn't cost me much but I did prize it one game where I finially realized how painful it can be since I can't search out for Noctowls from it too. Sure I can get the Basics out but without the Fan Rotom, we can't get the evolutions out as well.

UBL #4 Season 2 @ Nee Soon CC - 22nd/300 - 6/2/0 (+9 LP)

• R1 W Joltik Box
• R2 L Marnie's Grimmsnarl ex/Froslass
• R3 W Gardevoir ex
• R4 W Miraidon ex
• R5 W Tera Box
• R6 W Dragapult ex/Dusknoir
• R7 W Dragapult ex/Dusknoir
• R8 L Tera Box

List

What is it with me and losing to Grimms R2, it's the third time it's happened and once again I had a slow start and because I prized my other Boss, I couldn't deal with her 3rd Froslass and that cost me game. Also my R1 opponent hit a Watchtower Turn 1 which wasn't nice but in the end had to bump his own stadium just to use Bloodmoon Ursaluna which got me the win.

I played the 1 Pidgey list that got Top 8 in Birmingham and while the idea is nice in a Bo3 format, I didn't really like it in a Bo1 format, especially since I prized it in half my games!

The R8 loss to Tera Box hurt, especially as that was the win and in for top 8 and this time my resistance was good unlike yesterday so I knew if I won, I would finally get my first Top 8 finish at a UBL and score more points. But I went 2nd and had a slow start, slow enough that I knew I would be down 4 prizes before I could do anything. And sure enough that's what happened. A few misplays on my part too, especially when I should have attacked with Terapagos ex and not Charizard ex since it's quite easy for him to get Crispin + Vessel to get his Teal Mask Ogerpon set up in time (I wasn't expecting him to hit his 3rd Noctowl in a row). 

That loss really hurt and took a lot out of me, I couldn't even physically move at one point because of how down I felt. I was so close and once again didn't get the job done. But still, to get Top 32 finishes in all 4 UBL events, going x-2 in all of them is a pretty decent achievement I guess. But it just isn't enough for me, I wanted to do more, and I needed to get Top 4 at the very least to be more safer in the fight for the Worlds invite. 

As it stands, I'm now 7th in the standings, 5th of the 8 who don't have the invite already. It may look safe but I still don't feel it is just yet. After my 4th 12 point score, I hadn't added any yet and I'll need to win a few more GBLs in the 3rd season to be in a much safter spot to be in contention for Worlds in San Francisco, which has always been my plan. I didn't bother with the last two Worlds because I wasn't interested in going to either places but for SF, I have to try my best!

And just for fun, I wanted to share my record against the meta decks in this format for the games I have recorded:

Season 3 starts this weekend and I already know Dawn Zard is not in the best spot because Dragapult is about to be very popular, and that's one of my weaker matches. Another deck I expect to be stronger are the Froslass decks, and that's one of my weakest matchups across the board so I might have to start testing other decks to get those GBL wins I need to make it safely to the finish line. Thanks for reading!

2025 Re-cap

Just wanted to do a short re-cap of my Pokemon TCG adventures in 2025. Unlike 2024, I actually have stuff fo talk about this time.

A brief summary of the year, I got my first GBL win and I ended the year with 5 GBL wins, I made top cut at both of the major events held in Singapore, I travelled to Australia to play in a TPCi regional for the first time since OCIC 2020, and made day 2 in that event! I got my biggest online win so far out of 300 players. 

It was cool to add 3 more entries to the limitless page and as per tradition, they’ve all been different decks even though they kinda mix all together anyway! I mean it’s hard enough for a Singaporean player to be featured on Limitless due to the lack of major events we have (just 2) so to have 3 new ones to my name feels like an extra bonus. 

It really was a great year, not as great as 2023 but I don’t know if anything can ever top that. But I’m just happy I finally got the Zard Pidgeot entry on there after 2 years of trying.

January - Triple Declined for UBL

The year didn’t start so well for me. I was doing well in the first season of GBLs and put myself in a good spot to challenge for the top 8 spot for the world invites. Then January happened. 

I got declined for all 3 UBLs. It’s ok, I can walk into one right? Nope I failed the walk-in for all 3 too. So missed the first 3 UBLs and I was out of the top 20. And then Budew showed up and making me change decks too because Zard was not in a good spot.

February - First GBL win!

At this point I was still jumping around decks and one of the decks I really liked playing was Gouging Fire ex. Was it a good deck? Well it’s no Tier 1 or 2 deck but I liked playing it!

I played it for a Tournament of Doom and out of 171 players, I actually won it! It was a really good run and gave me the confidence to try it out for a GBL a few days later and I ended up winning that too, which was my first Great Ball League win so far since the new changes of events were introduced at the start of this season back in September.

March - Finally getting to play in UBLs

Well not much happened in March to be honest but I will point this out, I finally got elected to play in a UBL. To be fair I was guaranteed to play in one because I won a GBL and for doing that, you get a R1 bye for a UBL.

And how did I do in those events? Well not that great to be honest. 32nd out of 220 with Gholdengo, 72nd out of 260 with Gardevoir (this was the painful event where I started 4-0 and ended 4-4) and finally 43rd out of 300 with Lugia. I just wanted to play a deck with the VSTAR marker one last time before rotation hit us. 

April - My biggest online tournament win

April meant it was time for the new rotation. I was ready for it and I had been testing the Terapagos ex/Bouffalant deck by buddy Luke Morsa had been working on. He did quite well with it in one event that was convinced me to give it a go too. 

So for the Tournament of Doom on April 5th, my first online event in the new rotation, I went in with no expectations. And somehow ended up winning the whole thing out of 306 players! That is by far my biggest online tournament win yet, and as some of you may know, I do play in a lot of them, won 70+ events by now but not with one featuring 300+ players!

I was not expecting to do this well with a deck I hadn’t really played that much from the new rotation too. I mean I had practiced with it but not actually played it to a tournament yet so it was a nice surprise to win it and with a deck not many had known about too.

May - My first Day 2 finish at a TPCi major event

To be fair I didn’t do much in May. GBLs wasn’t going well for me and the other missed UBL in January meant I was losing touch with the leading contenders. And I was about to miss yet another UBL but this time, so would many of my friends too because we were all travelling to Australia for the Melbourne Regional.

But again I still wasn’t sure what to play for this event so I landed on Dragapult Dusknoir because it felt a better deck  to play in a bo3 setting than a bo1 setting. And even with the limited amount of games I had with the deck, I managed to make Day 2 for the Melbourne Regionals!

Day 2 didn’t go so well, one win shy of making some money from a top 32 finish but I’m glad that I can prove ri myself that I can do well in a TPCi regional. It was also my first one outside of Asia too! Hopefully I can do it again in the future. 

It was cool to play against players not from Singapore once again and I even got the chance to play against two of the very best players in the world, Kaiwen Cabbabe and Daichi Shimada. Sure enough they were the two that handed me my two losses in Day 1.

June - Top Cut at Singapore Master Ball League

I actually spent most of June in the US for my cousin’s wedding but I did bring my deck with me just in case I got the chance to play in an American local. The one deck that caught my eye was the one Rowan Stavenow won an invitational event with Dragapult Charizard.

After watching the streamed games I built the deck having brought all the pieces to build and started practising with it. Rowan and his crew had a decent run at NAIC and I decided just to keep with that same list for the Master Ball League.

I had one of my best runs, starting 5-0 as well, of the whole year in that event to make it into the top 32 cut, I couldn’t believe my luck, having struggled in every UBL I played this season yet somehow it was the big one, the MBL that it goes right. Sadly I lost to the mirror in Top 32 to two dead hands, it happens.

July - In my Rouge era with Charizard ex/Dusknoir

There wasn’t much for me to play for in July. Our MBL was over so the season was done and dusted. I wasn’t going to Worlds in Anaheim so I didn’t need to test much. But sure enough, I kept grinding and playing even in the off season.

But I was more having fun with one of my favourite decks to play with this year. It was a rouge variant of Charizard ex and Dusknoir, that’s it! You want to build up as many Dusknoir as possible, destroy their board state and having Zard clean up and since Dusknoir gives your opponent prizes, it helps Zard to do more damage.

I ended up winning two small online events with it and also two local gym events with it. It was fun seeing people confused by what version of Zard I was playing. 

August - Winning small events with Gholdengo

I got an online tournament  win with Dragapult Dusknoir out of 27 players, then an online tournament win with Gholdengo (also just 27 people), and a local qualifier event for some team event, also with Gholdengo. The less said about that specific event late on in October the better, I haven’t been that upset by a TO in a long time.

September - Nothing much happened here

Yeah, that’s really nothing for me to talk about here, nothing happened. I didn’t win a local event or an online event and our season had just restarted with me only playing in 2 GBLs, and just one Top 8 finish to show for it. 

Why only 2 you ask? Well I got declined for most of the ones I could go to and the rest? Well I wasn’t in Singapore as I went to Japan for a short trip with the fam.

October - GBL Win #2

Honestly, I almost had nothing to talk about for October as well if not for the GBL event that happened at Brick’s Play, which was also the last GBL of the first season of the 2025-26 season.

I still had no clue what to play so I just went for what looked like the most powerful deck to play, Dragapult Dusknoir. I don’t trust Gardevoir and Zard still wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be. 

And it worked out better than I expected! I won my first GBL of the new season but my second for the year of 2025. I got super lucky to be fair, my last two games were against Charizard Pidgeot and since I’m the Zard guy, I knew how Pult beats it and it helped me to get the win. 

The GBL win also meant I earnt a Round 1 bye for an upcoming UBL, aka I don’t have to worry about stupid lotteries declining me as usual.

November - Top Cut at Singapore Premier Ball League

November wasn’t the easiest start of the season for me. I ended up playing 4 different decks for the first four UBLs of the season (Zard, Joltik, Gholdengo and Pult). I used my GBL bye for the 3rd event and that’s the one I got my best UBL results so far….just 18th. I still haven’t cracked the top 16 yet.

So I wasn’t feeling the most confident going into the PBL. My choices were to stick to my usual Charizard Pidgeot, play what I felt was the best deck for that format in Gholdengo Lunatone or go completely rouge with a new deck, Dawn Charizard with Noctowl. 

I ended up going for my comfort pick in Zard Pidgeot. My brother was the one that pointed out to me that it was my last major event I could play that deck in, so I had to right? And it worked out quite well.

I made the top 128 cut, having survived two brutal games of bad prizing (both Charizard vs Gardevoir and both Charmeleon vs Dragapult). Unfortunately, the theme of me losing the first round of cut or winning an event continues…

…I didn’t win the event so yes I lost in Top 128 to a mirror match where I started slow and couldn’t pull off the big 4-prize KO for game turn in time. That’s just how it is sometimes, just have to deal with the cards you’re dealt with, and it being bo1 too.

December - GBL Wins #3, #4 and #5, all within 5 days!

And now for the last month of the year and maybe my favourite period of this whole year. I had my deck in mind for the second round of GBLs to start but I wasn’t sure how good or bad it will be because it was the new Charizard Dawn Noctowl deck I had been testing for a bit. And then Stuttgart Regional happened.

Dawn Zard actually won it from a player who got the list from my friend Oscar who had been helping me with the list as well. So now I knew if it could do well in the biggest stage, maybe I can get some decent results from my GBLs. My first event didn’t go so well, starting 0-2 but I did climb back to go 4-2.

And at the next event, I won my 3rd GBL of the year! And in the very next day, I won my 4th GBL of the year! I didn’t do so well the day after that but 2 days later, I got my 5th GBL win of the year! 

3 GBL wins in the space of 5 days (or say 3 City League wins or 3 League Challenge wins) was something I didn’t think was possible for someone like me to do. If it was one of the top players I’d believe it. Especially since it was Bo1 setting and the luck of variance can really put you out of the game before you can even do anything.

I won all 3 with the same 60 card list too and I got two other online tournaments win with Dawn Zard too, I could have made it 3 but I lost in the same 60-mirror due to my own bad mistake. Still I’m happy with the recent run of results and it’s giving me a realistic chance to achieve my goal for this season which is to earn my 2nd World Championships invite. I was planning to go anyway since it’s in San Francisco but it would be better to go as a player and not as a spectator.

And if you’re wondering how I ended my year of 2025? By playing Pokemon TCG of course, but for once, in Japan! I hadn’t really had much chances to play in Japan before but I had the chance to play at Toreca Camp’s New Year’s all-night test event. 

So went the clock struck midnight and 2025 became 2026, I was playing Pokemon TCG! Sure it was in a different language but the game is still the same! I wish you all a great year ahead for 2026! Thanks for reading.