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.
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