1 point short of making Worlds Day 2 - My Second Worlds Experience (Worlds 2026)

Worlds 2026

 It's been a week or since the 2026 Pokémon World Championships concluded and I got to participate in it for the 2nd time, my previous attempt was back in 2023 when I finished a respectable record of 5-3 so obviously I wanted to do one better, and get into Day 2 of Worlds this time around. And if you read the title of this entry, then you can kind of guess what happened.

Deck choices

For this Worlds, I wasn't too sure what I wanted to play. Charizard ex got me my invite but it was rotated and post rotation, I played Raging Bolt ex for 3 UBLs and the MBL, but I didn't too that well in any of them so I wasn't sure if I should stick with it. So I started testing many different options.

The decks I tested the most and was seriously considering:

• Dragapult ex
• Hammer build
• with Dusknoir
• with Blaziken ex
• with Dudunsparce
• with Toucannon
• Slowking
• Basic Box
• Ogerpon Box (Prism Basic Box)
• Raging Bolt ex/Teal Mask Ogerpon ex
• Lillie's Clefairy ex
• N's Zoroark ex
• Mega Excadrill ex
• Mega Lopunny ex/Dudunsparce
• Greninja ex/Dusknoir

A month out, my initial ranking would have been this from my self testing I had done:

1. Basic Box (Prism Basic Box)
2. Raging Bolt ex/Teal Mask Ogerpon ex
3. Slowking
4. Dragapult ex/Blaziken ex
5. Mega Excadrill ex

Let's just explain the last few ones, Zoroark I just felt I didn't have enough experience and game time to bring it to the biggest event of the year so even though I liked the Tome build, I couldn't go with that just due to lack of experience with the deck. Excadrill was my "in case of emergecy brake glass" deck, I was still suffering from some health issue leading up to Worlds so if it was still bad, I would have just sent Excadrill, thankfully everything cleared up as I was in Japan just before heading off to San Francisco. 

Lopunny and Greninja were just rouge choices I had played a lot of, but just didn't feel confident enough to bring either. I do like both deck but just didn't think they'd get me there. Speaking of rouges, I did know of the Malaysian Tox Box deck for about 2 months, but as I didn't play much with it, I chose not to go for it.

Slowking was at one point my initial choice to play for Worlds, my spreadsheet said it was the best play and it I had played it at 3 local events, went 3-0 in all of them so I thought....maybe that's the one. But something changed as I was in Japan, the deck just started not doing well and I had my doubts with it and decided to go with the comfort choice of Raging Bolt.

As for Dragapult, I know it's the deck to play but I had a very simple reason for not playing it to Worlds. There's gonna be 100+ players better than me in that room, and they know the Pult mirror better than me so I don't hold any advantages there. And I didn't play Pult much this season either so that just felt like the wrong choice to me. So Bolt it was, it had a good Pult matchup and can keep up with almost every deck not named Alakazam and Festival Lead which I didn't think would show up in big numbers so why not go with that choice (I was clearly wrong when it came to Alakazam).

Deck List

Before showing off the list I played, I wanted to share the ones I was testing initially. But first up is not Raging Bolt, but one I was initially thinking I would end up playing. It's the one that won the Japan Championships and I played it to the Pokemon World Cup with Team Singapore, winning 3 of my 4 matches, only losing to Jackson Ford in a very close game too. My main issue of the deck was that it couldn't do enough damage to stuff like Mega Excadrill ex and it was everywhere before Worlds, which made me think it was going to be a popular choice (it wasn't but I still did hit 2 of them in the latter rounds).

The list I played for Pokemon World Cup

The first was one I had seen doing well in so many online events which got me back into testing Raging Bolt in the first place, this was from Jose Roberto Rueda. Big shoutout to him for doing so well and also him and Juan Sebastian Caballero had a well written Bolt guide on Metafy, give it a look!

The first list

I tested with this the most and even won an online tournament with this exact 60 and it kinda made up my mind that day that this was likely the one for me to go with. 

Then I got a message from Harpr who was also testing Raging Bolt along with the South African players and wanted to share notes about it and I was more than happy to since no-one else from the Singapore contingent apart from Jeremy and Kaizer were considering Bolt so I didn't really have anyone else to talk about the deck with. He too had made a Metafy guide on Bolt, another one I would consider checking out.

I played his list with a few changes (the main being a 2-2 Lighting Fighting energy to see if the list could open up a space for some techs) to a local bo3 event in Japan at Ragnarok Gaming as they were hosting a test event for those going to Worlds and well....I am too so why not! 

Harpr's list

I ended up finishing 1st out of 14 players and I got to play a friendly bo3 set with former world champion himself Takuto Itagaki and also won that set which gave me more confidence going into Worlds. Takuto was also nice enough to give me some suggestions on what I should change from the list, mostly going for Unfair Stamp over Prime Catcher and some tech cards I should keep or change.

A day before Worlds, my fellow SG Raging Bolt player Kaizer shared me his list and it was something similar to what I played for the Master Ball League with Koraidon and Raging Bolt in the list as single prize attackers. It was probably better into stuff like Festival Lead and Alakazam but because I had been testing the first list the most, I wanted to keep with that and stick with what I'm comfortable with and not change something last minute.

Kaizer's list

As for the final list, here it is:

My list for Worlds 2026

I did make some changes in the end:

• Iron Leaves ex for Switch
• The idea was I had more outs to draw into an Iron Leaves ex to counter Sob lock plays than I would had I played Switch since I had Cyrano and Ultra Ball to get Iron Leaves as well
• The cost was if my bench is full, I wouldn't be able to get out of Sob lock
• Jamming Tower for the 4th Area Zero Underdepths
• This one had been weighing in my mind for the longest time. I knew of Excadrill players and also a few Pult players likely going for Hero's Cape and I wanted some outs to it. And I knew Basic Box were likely to depend on Lillie's Pearl. I also wanted out to silly stuff like Handheld Fand, Lucky Helmet and Binding Mochi
• It can also act as a pseudo Chien Pao to clear out my bench of unwanted bench sitters

On hindsight, I should have gotten rid of Iron Crown ex, it turned out to be the most useless card in my deck. It's there for Alakazam and Festival Lead and even in testing, I never got to pull off the Turn 2 attack any time. Probably a Bloodmoon Ursaluna ex as a late game closer or the 3rd Boss's Orders.

Late into Thursday I also started toying with the idea of switching my 2nd Raging Bolt into a 2nd Lillie's Clefairy in case the field was really 50% Pults, but because I hadn't tested it out much, I stuck with it. I had no idea most of the Bolt players had the same idea and all went for the 2nd Clefairy. But yeah that's the list I went with.

Pokémon World Championships 2026 - Day 1

Round 1 vs Nobuto Hongo (Slowking)

• G1 I go 2nd L
• G2 I go 1st W
• G3 I go 2nd W

He looked very nervous going into the first round and as I spoke to him, I found out it was his first WCS so I told him not to worry, just have fun and do your best. Little did he know, I was also very nervous. (I also didn't realize he won the first Champions League of last season too!)

Back in 2023, I went into that event quite calm, no nerves, nothing. But this was different, I was more nervous than I usually was. To the point I finished my drink even before the first game ended! 

And that first game was just so bad. I had forgotten to bench Mega Kangaskhan ex for some reason and he punished me by getting prime catcher off his Lille and ultra ball for the attacker and got Wondrous Patch too. Then I forgot I had no Latias on board and tried to retreat by Khan, whoops. So I scooped game 1.

Game 2 he bricked, he just had no attackers going so I was able to build up the Wellspring + Boss to KO both Slowpokes that came down on the field and he never recovered. 

Game 3 was actually looking really bad, he got the KO on my Khan and since I knew he could easily do that, I took the risk to set up two Khans to attack. My hail marry move was to set up Unfair Stamp through Cipher and hope he would struggle from it, take the one prize and hope he had no response (I had done a Wellspring KO before then to take the first 2 prizes) and now all I needed was boss to KO his Mega Khan. 

He drew pass and I started to set up my Rag Bolt to attack his Khan while retreating into Chien Pao to make it harder for him to take his final 3 prizes. He took out the CPao but I had everything I needed to boss KO his Khan with Bolt.

1-0 up, good start so far but I was still feeling nervous.

Me playing in Round 1

R2 vs Jeremy Castro (Dragapult ex)

• G1 I go 1st L
• G2 I go 1st W
• G3 I go 2nd W

Next up was a name I recognised, because I did remember Jeremy had made Day 2 at both EUIC and NAIC, especially the latter just months ago with Dragapult so I've got someone who has a proven track record with his deck.

Game 1 ended in turn 1 on his turn because my turn 1 was attach a grass energy on TM Ogerpon and pass but he had ultra ball for Meowth to get Crispin to set up Moltres for the KO. The problem is, I had an Iron Crown ex I could have started in hand so that was a mistake. 

Game 2 he just could not set up any Drakloaks at all, finding his first one after 4 turns! Game 3 was much more even, his hammer flips were mostly tails so that helped. I managed to go with the usual game plan, Khan takes first two, Clefairy took the next two and thankfully he didn’t disrupt my hand as I had stretcher and Crispin to KO his 2nd Pult.

R3 vs Kohei Kurita (Dragapult ex/Dusknoir)

• G1 I go 2nd W
• G2 I go 2nd L
• G3 I go 1st W

For once I won a game 1 and it was a quick one as he struggled to set up and scooped after the 3rd turn as I had taken 3 prizes already. Game 2 actually didn’t start until 7 minutes later, as we got deck checked and guess who the judge was? Yes my own friend and fellow SGer Charmaine haha! (Why you always bully me lol)

The judge call did actually calm me down funnily enough so I wasn’t feeling so nervous anymore but Game 2 was terrible, I had a dead hand and just couldn’t set up at all and his Dusk bombs did a big number on me. Game 3, just like the other Pult game, went to plan! 2 prizes up, KO Pult with Bolt and last KO with Clefairy. 3-0 start at Worlds, I'm feeling good right now. Then I see my pairing for the next round...

Uh-oh

R4 vs Diego Cassiraga (Alakazam)

• G1 I go 2nd W
• G2 I go 2nd L
• G3 I go 1st L

Remember when I said I wasn’t feeling nervous anymore? Oh it came back in a big way when I saw who I got paired with for Round 4. None other than the 2017 World Champion Diego Cassiraga! Nervous but also excited, now I get to see how I’d stack up against one of the greats in the game.

And then he flipped over Abra and I thought “oh god….this is bad”, this was one of the matchups I was hoping not to hit. It’s a near autoloss. I say that even though I did win game 1 thanks to a well timed Sob on his Fez. I was trying to set up KO on it and one of his Kadabras to deny him the draw but one of his last Dudunsparce got him the Shaymin. He put it down and I went after the Shaymin to KO both with boss and he scooped as I was down to 2 prizes with no Khans on board thanks to CPao.

Don’t remember much of game 2 but his Genesect didn’t come down early so I got the stamp off this time but he drew out of it and i couldn’t keep up with him.

Game 3 just reminded me why he’s a World Champion and I’m just a nobody. I went first, started Khan but no energies in hand and passed. So he essentially got to start first.

I did get to a point where I did get attacks going off and the turn I was going to take my 2nd prize, my top deck was unfair stamp, and I thought to myself, oh this could be good since he has to attack next turn. His next turn, he draws some cards and uses Eri and immediately throws my Stamp away haha. I looked at him, he looked at me and we both knew that was game. 

He was a fierce competitor for sure, in game he was ruthless, scary even I’d say. But before the game and after the game, he was just the nicest guy ever, even told me “hey I follow you on Twitter” and we had a nice chat before our game. That’s probably why he’s a World Champion after all. I learned so much just from that set against him, and even though I lost, I still felt good. I was bummed for him when he lost in finals.

Also this game kinda made me realise…maybe I made a mistake by having Iron Crowns in the deck as it was useless in this one matchup I needed it the most.

R5 vs Hayden Matthews (N's Zoroark ex) 

• G1 I go 1st W
• G2 I go 2nd L
• G3 I go 1st W

Another name I recognized only because we’ve played each other in online tournaments a number of times! Another lovely guy to play against, he was super friendly the whole way. 

He whiffed the first two prize KO in the game which meant I had the advantage as I took two single prizes down with Khan, followed by Iron Leaves and then finally Teal Mask Ogerpon.

2nd game he took the first two prize KO and I just could not catch back up in the prize race and scooped as I saw the writing on the wall after the 3rd and 4th prizes since he still had two more bosses to work with. My Hail Mary of the Stamp didn’t work either.

3rd game was a bit similar to the first but the two prizes came from Wellspring which was my ideal attacker. His red card did make it a bit sketchy for me but I got a bit lucky to draw into the pieces I needed for TM Ogerpon to take the final KO.

R6 vs Emiliano Zapata (Mega Excadrill ex)

• G1 I go 1st W
• G2 I go 1st L
• G3 I go 1st L

So the funny story is I didn’t even realise Emiliano was on stream the round before this, whoops. But it was my first Excadrill matchup of the day. Game 1 came down to the wire, it took us a long while haha! He had his Excadrill set up with Cape but thankfully I had Jamming Tower in the list as my last minute tech choice and it won me that game. 

G2 wasn’t looking good for me, he got the ideal setup and took out my Khan very quickly. We traded prizes back and forth, I even KOed his Metagross with my Latias ex! It came down to a point where I just could not draw the pieces to get a Raging Bolt attack going and had to gamble on Mega Khan hitting 3 heads from Rapid-Fire Combo. I got two heads, but not the third for the KO and the win so I lost that one.

G3 was just sad, I started with just a Teal Mask Ogerpon so I was already quite behind despite going first. I managed to claw myself back into the game, and I put myself in a position to win off a boss, I just needed him to not draw into 4 energies off his 3 Metangs for game, and since he had used Recycler the turn before, it was very likely he would get it and he did, winning on Turn 2 of overtime. Had he missed, I had boss waiting in hand for game.

That was a painful loss to take because I felt I should have won that, having tested that matchup a lot going into this event. I knew what I was supposed to do and just couldn't draw well enough to get me there. 4-2, now I needed to win two more games to me in a better spot for Day 2 at Worlds.

R7 vs Isaiah Cheville (Mega Excadrill ex)

• G1 I go 1st W
• G2 I go 1st W

My heart sank a bit when the pairings went up because I knew the next two games were must win games.....but against my own friend Zaya???? I was not expecting a friendly fire this late on in the event.

This was my only 2 game set of the entire day and unfortunately Zaya had poor setups in both games. G1 I managed to get Wellspring going very quickly and Zaya scooped to go to G2. Raging Bolt pulled it's weight for the next game. I did get some favorable draws this time around, unlike the last round. 

5-2, and I just need one point to make Day 2, aka an intentional draw (ID). The issue is, I've been down this road, I took the ID at Melbourne Regional and screwed myself of any chance of doing well, so I already knew I can't do that again. I had a few friends come up to me to talk about the last round, all agreeing that I should fight for the win unless I hit an Alakazam or Festival Lead, then I should just take the ID since both of them were unwinnable matchups.

R8 vs Fabio Battistella (Basic Box)

• G1 I go 1st W
• G2 I go 1st L
• G3 I go 2nd L

Pairings went up and I recognized this name from doing all my reports for Pokestats, I knew how good Fabio is so this was always going to be a tough round. He offered the ID to me right away (I had no idea at this point that he had just gone from 5-0 to 5-2 so I kinda understood why he wanted the ID), but I told him I couldn't go for that, I had to give myself the best shot of doing well for the event and going into Day 2 at 5-2-1 would kill my hopes of making top cut. Sure I can still earn some money but that's not really my aim, I'm aiming higher than that. Go big or die trying right?

Game 1 went perfectly, I kept the Jamming Tower tech hidden until I took the 3rd and 4th prizes and all I needed was a boss to clean up the game. Game 2 I drew poorly and never came back from his Unfair Stamp, he had boss for game in the end when I was just about to make a comeback.

Before Game 3 started Fabio once again offered the ID, and once again I had to reject it. But I was feeling super nervous now, this one game will decide whether I will get to play in Day 2 of the World Championships for the first time or be a spectator for tomorrow, I've come too far not to at least give it a try. My first mistake was probably choosing to go 2nd, I had noticed he kept wanting to go 2nd so I thought I should take that option away from him.

Then came the big misplay, I had my Mega Khan set up to KO either his Clefairy or Meowth. I was holding on to Jamming Tower in my hand, my initial instinct was, just put it down, take the KO on Clefairy and find a way to go around the 2nd Pearl (either KO Clefairy and Khan or double Boss for game). And then a second thought came to mind....what if I just Boss KO Meowth first, save the Tower for the KO later on and give myself to close up the game with just 2 prizes left. 

What I should have done is just put down Jamming Tower and KO his attacker, and find my way to get the last 4 prizes. I should have also been aware that he has an easy way to search out Unfair Stamp, in the previous two games he went aggressive with Meowth for Cipher to always get Stamp so that should have been on my mind since he'd need to build up another attacker. So I don't know what got to me to boss up the Meowth instead, that was the wrong move that pretty much killed my game I think.

As I suspected, he did get Stamp off and I drew two unplayable cards out of it. Clefairy hit my Khan, draw for turn, another unplayable card. Draw 2 more cards from Run Errand, and it was two Area Zeros, aka still more unplayable cards (my hand if I remember correctly was 2 Area Zeros, Iron Leaves, E-Switch and Mega Khan). 

It felt someone somewhere was punishing me for that bad misplay, that was karma for misplaying the turn before. I did manage to put myself within two prizes of winning the game but I knew hoping he wouldn't draw a boss for game was a tall task. And sure enough he had it. 

5-3, I took the gamble to play it out and it failed on me and I only have myself to blame for that. But I wasn't the only one playing out their games, to my right was the one and only Tord Reklev playing it out and unfortunately he too lost. The table next to me had Sander Wojcik as well, and he too lost. 

And just like my first Worlds, the 3 players who beat me all made it into Day 2, but this time there was a 4th as Kohei also made Day 2. In fact, all of my opponents apart from my first opponent won 5 games, so yeah those were some tough players I had to go through so I hope my 5-3 score meant something after seeing these scores at the very least.

Reflections

It just hurts to miss Day 2 by just one point this time, and sure, I could have just IDed and get into Day 2 if that was my ultimate aim, but my aim was higher than that, I wanted to push for a top cut finish because I felt I could do it. Maybe unrealistic but I had put so much time into this deck, I thought I should at least give myself the chance to go for glory and not settle for just being in it for the sake of it.

What hurt more was the misplay and two people close to me thought it was perhaps my lack of playing in such high-stakes game that led to me making the misplay in game 3 of Round 8, to which I can agree with them. It did get me and I got nervous and made the wrong choice when I should have stayed calmed and followed my initial instinct of KOing the Clefairy with the Jamming Tower (great tech choice btw).

It's a bit funny that I got the same exact score as I did in 2023 (5-3 both times) but both were completely different. The first time I was confident in my deck but not in my skills as a player and that got me. Well much more of the same this time around but a little different too, less confidence with my deck but more with myself as a player and I could see improvements already from these 3 years. 

I still have so much more to improve on as a player, and at least now I know I can make it to Day 2 of the World Championships. I just need to keep doing better, keep improving, be more alert to situations in the game, adapt when things are starting to go awry, just trust myself, make the correct deck or tech choices and just keep calm. The last part can be a bit hard for someone like me as I get nervous very easily and I can get upset and let it get to me when things aren't going well, I just need to find a way to fix that.

And I probably need to learn how to make good deck choices too. We all know Dragapult was the best choice, and I probably should have played it. There were other things I could have played too and I knew I my heart Raging Bolt probably wasn’t the best choice but it was my comfort pick. Which leads me to my biggest issue…

Confidence. People that know me know I’m not a very confident person. I’ve struggled with it ever since I was a kid, be it in school, at work, in the army, or gaming, I don’t know what it is, but I always end up second guessing myself under pressure when I know what I’m supposed to do. 

Prime example being that misplay in Game 3 of Round 8 when I knew the right play was to KO Clefairy with Jamming Tower, I just don’t know why I went the other direction. This is probably the hardest thing for me to work on. It’s all a work in progress if I ever want to compete at the top tables like the best players in the world tend to do on a consistent basis.

Top tables at Worlds in Round 11

The Worlds Experience!

Now for some fun.

So my trip actually started the week before Worlds, I flew to Tokyo for about 6 days, got some practice in, played some locals, wrote down my matchup concepts and some notes, watched other pro players playing the same deck and that was my prep, other than just having fun walking around. 

I flew off to San Francisco on Sunday, but went to Sacramento first to see my family and spend the night with them, which I could have done more days. Stayed at my cousin’s place at Walnut Creek for the next few days which was about a 40 minute train ride on the BART, didn’t find it that bad.

Tuesday - Checking out the venue

Went to see the venue on Tuesday and wow the decorations looked amazing. Bumped into the lovely Joe and Emily from Omnipoke, lovely people! Went to check out the badge pickup place and saw Tord walk past me and I was like….”oh shit it’s real now haha”. There were many familiar faces but I was too nervous/shy to say hi to any of them. Luckily Natalie saw me and calmed my nerves down for the event. Always great talking to her.

The venue

Wednesday - Badge Pickup/Play Testing

We did our badge pickup on Wednesday with the Singapore crew, it was way more smoother than the last one in Japan and from what I heard a vast improvement from Anaheim so kudos to the team.

I got my last few play testing games in today as well, tested with Yu Xian on straight Pult and Kai on Pult Blaziken, always a pleasure to get to test with top players from around the world. Even though I lost I learnt a thing or two or what to do in that matchup.

At this point the Singapore crew were mostly on Dragapult apart from me and Kaizer (Raging Bolt) and Terry (Excadrill). The Malaysian duo of Kai Jian and Brendan joined us in testing where I finally got to see their Tox Box deck in action and it looked really decent, I knew those two had been testing that for months so kudos to them. 

Thursday - The Pokemon Center

And now for the big one….as in big damage to all of our wallets. I didn’t think I would spend a lot of money and I wasn’t picking a lot of stuff up until I saw the San Francisco line of merch and up they got me. There were too many nice things to buy so let’s see if I can remember what I got: 

• Double deck boxes in all 3 versions
• Playmat for the XP and San Fran version (I don’t know why I didn’t pick up the Worlds one, I had it and put it back at some point)
• Sleeves for all 3 versions
• Dice box for all 3 versions
• Worlds binder
• San Fran Worlds bottle
• Some fancy Charizard shirt from Europe
• The XP Zard shirt
• The Charmander and Geodude Lego set
• San Fran keychain (I have loads of keychains featuring San Francisco btw haha)
• Ascended Heroes booster bundle (before you people ask, yes I know I should have picked up the booster box too, that’s a misplay on my part, I didn’t realise how much it was worth)
• Some random Charmander sticker set 

And I think the total damage was $514 USD. Way more than I expected but in a way, I was kinda happy to see 500, I feared it might have been 700 or something like that.

This SF line looked sick

On the way back to the hotel, while seeing the black market alongside the badge pickup area, I finally met up with my friend Marco Cifuentes, I think I spend the most time chatting with him than anymore I met at Worlds, what a lovely fella and a great player too. I played him loads of times during the pandemic and I’m so happy to see him become the top player I knew from that time. 

I also got to meet Sunny, the only other Singh playing at Worlds so it was cool to have another one repping our people at the biggest stage and I’m so happy for his success this season and he got Top 64 too! I wished I had taken a photo with him though, I usually don’t ask people for it and the only other one I too was with Marco and Azul.

Thursday night we were all in Yu Xian’s room helping to check each other’s 60 cards to make sure we don’t get a silly penalty for no reason. Shauna was the latest to jump off the Pult train and back to her Grimm routes. 

Also I had a hard time finding locals to play during my stay there which was a bit weird. The 2 I had picked out in Concord and Berkeley (both were close to me when I was staying at my cousin's place in Walnut Creek) either cancelled or switched to a different format and the ones in downtown SF was either full or too expensive for my liking.

Pokemon Center line

Friday - Worlds Day 1

I didn’t see much, I was busy playing. I was just in the Worlds hall for pretty much the whole day, and anytime I had free time in between games, I was either chatting to my Singaporean peeps, just walking around or saying hello to some friends like Julius, Alex, Marco and also Vini who I finally met for the first time, I've known him since the pandemic days too.

Saturday - Exploring XP

I did think about joining the Open but I was having a bad headache after Friday I thought, I should sit that one out and just enjoy the experience of Pokémon XP. Plus my cousins were coming down so I had a reason not to play.

The XP venue was HUGE! There was so much to see and loads of stuff on display and even after 3 days, I don’t think I saw all of it honestly. 

As a lifelong LEGO fan, the LEGO section was cool to see, especially all the upcoming sets. I still have not seen one in Singapore so I’m not sure how my Pokémon LEGO collection will grow.

The OG trio in Lego

The art of Pokémon TCG card section was a nice touch, especially the Yuka Morii displays with all the clay Pokémon in those cards too. Too bad the other stuff had lines to get into them which I'll talk about soon.

I didn’t get to see much of the Funko or Switch areas but they were massive. I didn't see much of what was happening on the stage area but it was huge and streamed on Youtube at least. The biggest letdown for me was not being able to see the 30th celebration display or the Pokémon Museum (something I really wanted to check out), because the lines for both were always too long! Same for the Lego stuff. Same for the Switch stuff. Same for the Funko stuff. Long story short, WAY TOO MANY LINES! 

Trubbish!

I thankfully did not take part in the stamp rally, I heard it was a complete mess and it didn’t let players go into the venue which would have pissed me off. So I was happy to hear it got canceled on Sunday haha. I didn't actually get to see the trade zone area so I had no idea how hectic it was, I remember it was super hectic back in Yokohama. The night market at the Marriott hotel was also hectic, that was an experience for sure.

Rayquaza Road was amazing, there was so much going on around it, especially the photo opps with the decorations all around, and of course the Rayquaza cable car haha!

I didn't get to check out what was happening at Buena Gardens which was a bit sad, walked past it on Saturday and Sunday. Looked nice though but didn't see what else was going on there.

Overall I thought XP was fine, lots of cool stuff to check out as Pokémon fans like myself but the long wait queues for just about anything was my biggest issue. I don't have time to stand in line for 1-2 hours just to see stuff for a few minutes, it's not worth the trouble and hopefully whenever the next XP happens, they can fix that.

The starting scene from Pokemon Red all those years ago

Sunday - Championship Sunday at the Chase Center and the Big Announcement for Worlds 2027

Watching the finals of all the games taking place at an arena for last year's event was really cool so I was psyched to see how much more grander it will be since it'll be at the Chase Center. I've been inside once for AEW Revolution PPV back in 2023 and I thought it was huge. 

And sure enough, it blew away my expectations. The lighting, the graphics on the floor, the overall presence was just amazing, fitting use for a Championship Sunday I would say. I saw a bit of the GO games, it was alright. The TCG stuff was awesome as always, the Juniors game was probably the best one. And seeing a friend like Andrew win the World Championship was pretty damn cool, especially in person! 

The VGC games had the most hype from what I saw, it got the most reaction too and hey, it was the first time Champions was used for Worlds. I should download it and try it out myself too. 

After everything was done, champions were crowned, and a mini performance. We got some announcements, for GO, Champions and TCG. The TCG one I thought was a bit of a letdown, they just showed alternate art of cards we already have in standard, and I do not care one bit. The only thing they did tease was the new ex star, whatever it may be! Oh they announced a new Pokémon movie, which had a TCG theme going which is cool. I'd check it out for sure. And then we get the announcement, where is Worlds going next?...

Pokemon World Championships 2027 in Singapore!!!!!!

Worlds 2027 in Singapore!

You heard it right, my home country of Singapore is hosting Worlds next year!!! I mean I knew about it from 2 months ago when I friend of mine broke the news to me, and I never leaked! But still to see the Solgaleo show up on the screen, I already knew since Solgaleo is our new Pokémon Center mascot. 

But yeah, Worlds at home, I never thought I'd see the day. I know I've been jokingly asking for Worlds to be in Singapore for about 10 years but to actually see it happening is pretty cool. And my first live official TCG tournament happened in 2017, so it does feel a bit of a full circle moment for Worlds to be happening in Singapore 10 years later. 

I do hope I can be one of the lucky 12 people out of 700+ players here in Singapore who can represent the home crowd in the biggest stage. It won't be easy since everyone will want to get their invite this year since we don't have to travel for once! I probably feel I have the most pressure out of anyone here because when the announcement was made, all of my friends were telling me, hey I guess I'll see you next year! And the only way for me to do that is to qualify for Worlds for a third time (I could get a spectator pass too but that's very unlikely to happen this year since Worlds is at home). 

World in 2026 felt more bigger, more grander, more hyped than when I was in 2023 which I thought was impossible since it was in Japan after all! But SF made it a special one for sure. It did help that I was staying in the city too for once, I was staying in Tokyo for Worlds in 2023, 1 hour away from Yokohama. I do hope next year's Worlds in Singapore will be just as special.

I also have the addition motivation to do one better than this year's Worlds. Both my runs so far have ended at 5-3. Lost in Round 7 in 2023, lost in the win and in at Round 8 this year, and I know I can make Day 2 so that's my aim for this next year, if I qualify in the first place. I'll do my very best to get there and hopefully see you all here in Singapore!

Team Singapore in San Francisco for Worlds 2026. See you all next year in Singapore!

Charizard ex - The Story of My Favourite Card in PTCG - 30 Versions of Zard ex

 

The time has come for me to say goodbye to probably my favourite card I've ever played in my long journey of Pokémon TCG, and that is Charizard ex. When I first I read about it during the reveal of the then new Ruler of the Black Flame set in Japan back in June 2023, I knew I was going to play this. This Charizard ex reminded me so much of my other favourite card from Pokemon TCG, Charizard from Team Up. Plus, any deck that gives me a reason to play my favourite Pokemon, that being Charmander, is a good enough excuse for me to play it.

So right there and then, I made a pact to myself, I will play it from the day it releases up to the day it's no longer legal to play. That day has just went and passed us by, and you guessed it, Charizard ex was the last deck I played with G-Block legal, even though it's not in the best spot now but hey, I won that Great Ball League event! Which is quite fitting in a way, as the first time I picked it up for an online tournament, I also won it.

Charizard ex with Arceus VSTAR

Time Period: August 2023-October 2023

Wins: 1 (Online 1)

Top 4: 3 (Online 3)

Online - Obsidian Flames Standard - 1st/30

We start off with the first build of Charizard ex with the obvious partner Pidgeot ex. Both were in the Obsidian Flames set and both were reliant on Stage 2 so they looked like the perfect pairing. But how do we get Pidgeot and Charizard up? Well the first answer was through Arceus VSTAR's Starbirth ability, to take any 2 cards, usually the 1-off Jacq and Rare Candy.

In a way, the first build of Charizard is very similiar to the last build of Charizard, using a colourless pokemon to search for 2 cards, and for the last build it was Noctowl. We also had Mew, very similiar to Tatsugiri but it searches for Item instead of Supporters. This deck was item heavy so you rarely whiffed. And we had Radiant Charizard as our other back-up attacker alongside Arceus VSTAR. 

The deck was alright for starters but I just knew this was not the right way to play Charizard ex. Relying on Arceus VSTAR felt wrong to me after a few more games of playing and I started to search for other answers to see what could make the deck work better and I found perhaps the best answer of them all not long after, and that same answer? Well it took the rest of the world to find out much later on but I knew how good it very early on.

Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex with Arven V1 - 2 Arven

Time Period: September 2023

Top 4: 1 (Online 1)

Online - Pokémon Battle Park - 3rd/149

My friend Patrick Wall showed me this list from one of his locals and I was instantly sold. This felt like a way better answer to my issue with Arceus VSTAR. Arven would help us get an Item and a Tool card, and the Tool choice would usually be Forest Seal Stone and with Entei V and Lumineon V, I will always have two targets to use it on. Attach it, use the ability to find one card and with either the Rare Candy or Ultra Ball taken from Arven, we can set-up right there and then! And if we whiff Arven, no worries we had Town Store too! 

I got Top 4 with my first run with the deck. Sure it wasn't fleshed out yet but it already felt good. The more I played the deck, and I was streaming this event btw, the more I could see what needed to be added. And I specifically remember talking to my friend and saying, "this deck needs 3 Arven, maybe 4". I was already convinced this was the right way to play Charizard ex, but nobody else seemed to agree with me, all I heard was a bunch of "this is wrong, why are you not playing Arceus, this idea is terrible". These same people would end up talking very highly about the winning Curitiba Zard list featuring.....Arven and Forest Seal Stone, albeit with a much better list. 

Charizard ex with Bibarel

Time Period: September 2023-April 2024

Top 4: 1 (Online 1)

Points Scored IRL: 130 CSP

2023-24 Singapore Town League #4 @ ManaPro - 8th/64

Online - Sparkling Pokémon TCG Live #24 - 2nd/24

You know I had to right? Pairing my favourite Pokemon with my favourite engine over the past year or so, Bibarel! This version of Zard did not have Pidgeot ex which mades things tricky. And I posted two lists to show how diffent things became from the start to the end. The first picture was from November and the second from April.

I still did have the 4 Arven in Zard now to help get my Zards set up but with 2 Bibarel draws on board, usually we'd be able to draw into 1 piece and use Arven to search out for the other piece. And I still had Forest Seal Stone in the deck for either Lumineon V, Entei V or even Pidgeot V to use the VSTAR ability to find any card. The second build felt much better with the introduction of Ciphermaniac's Codebreaking, which meant I could find the exact pieces I needed, draw them out with Bibarel and set the board up however I want it to be. 

This version was fun, I got a Top 16 finish at a Town League event with it but I knew deep down, this wasn't the best way to play Charizard ex sadly. The draw power from Bibarel was nice but sometimes you'd draw into nothing and be stuck. At least with Pidgeot ex, you'll always find exactly what you need. Which is why I would end up going with Pidgeot ex from there on out. 

But I still wanted to explore Charizard ex and find other ways to play it. 

Charizard ex with Lost Zone Box

Time Period: September 2023

Wins: 1 (Online)

Top 4: 4 (4 Online + 1 IRL)

Online - Pokémon Battle Park- 151 is Legal - 1st/89

What about Charizard ex with the Lost Zone engine? This deck honestly felt like the Pult Zard deck you'll see much later on where initially you'd spread around damage with your main engine and then Charizard ex would clean up the rest of the threats to help us win the game. 

You all know about the Lost Zone engine, get cards into the Lozt Zone through Comfey and Colress's Experiment, then attack with either Cramorant (4 in Lost Zone), Radiant Greninja (7 in lost zone to use Mirage Gate) or Sableye (10 in lost zone). These guys will get KOed eventually, meaning Charizard ex will do more damage the more prizes opponents have taken. And we can usually set up Zard from the draw power of Colress, Comfey and Radiant Greninja. 

The idea was actually quite fun to play, and my results showed how much I enjoyed it too. I didn't play much of it but of the 8 online events I played it, I got top 4 in half of them and for the 3 IRL events, 2 of them were top 8 finishes. But of course, this build of Lost Zard ex just never caught on with the rest, and I never played with it much after that. If it was a Lost Zone deck, it was either Radiant Greninja or my personal favourite, Radiant Charizard. Cool deck nonetheless. Speaking of which...

Charizard ex with Gallade

Time Period: September 2023

Wins: 1 (Online)

Top 4: 3 (3 Online)

Online - Deck Out Thursdays - 1st/76

I have only played this version of Charizard ex with Gallade in 3 online events, I won one and got 2nd in the other two events! 1st, 2nd and 2nd, what a good 3-run stretch for a deck that never saw play after that. The idea was to use Kirlia's Refinement to draw into the pieces we needed to set up Charizard ex and we can also use Gallade's Buddy Catch to get any supporter we wanted out of the deck! Boss for game? Thank you Gallade, don't mind if I do.

And it wasn't just there to find supporters, it could also attack with Reversal Energy, albeit needing to be behind on prizes, doing 160 and moving energies to a Benched pokemon, aka setting up another Gallade to attack or Charizard ex to attack or a energy for Mew to retreat after using it's Mysterious Tail ability. This deck was a lot of fun, it wasn't the best way to play Charizard ex but probably the most interesting way to play it at that time.

Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex with Arven V2 - 4 Arven

Time Period: October 2023-November 2023

Wins: 1 (Online)

Top 4: 2 (1 Online + 1 IRL)

Points Scored IRL: 100 CSP

Online - MorningTCG Weekly #26- 1st/45

And now we come back to Arven Zard, and this is post Curitiba Region where William won with the new 4-Arven build of Charizard ex. I was happy to see it win because I already knew Arven was the way forward and I had already been building a list of my own to reflect it. The list I had from the event I got 3rd in (ignoring the Charmander form PGO set I was using because I didn't have the OBF one), my initial list was only 9 cards off the winning list.

I tried experimenting with a few other stuff, like a 1-1 Bibarel line, Pidgeot V in place of Entei V, Penny to get rid of some bench sitters and a whole host of Tool cards. At any point of time, 8 different tool cards were played in the list:

• Forest Seal Stone (to find any 1 card and the best tool)
• Choice Belt (+30 vs V mons)
• Vengeful Punch (4 damage counters to active if this mon was KOed, for Garde)
• Vitality Band (+10 damage)
• Justified Gloves (+30 damage to Dark type mons, especially Zard ex mirrors)
• Defiance Band (+30 damage if behind on prizes)
• Tool Jammer (active mon's tool does not work)

Something just still didn't feel right about the deck though but that all would change with the release of the new Paradox Rift set, with the re-release of an old card that was about to change the game.

Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex with Arven V3 - Rotom V + Counter Catcher

Time Period: November 2023-March 2024

Wins: 3 (2 Online + 1 IRL)

Top 4: 10 (4 Online + 6 IRL)

Points Scored IRL: 275 CP

2023-24 Singapore Regional League Vol. 2 @ Suntec City - 54th/306

Paradox Rift introduced a bunch of new cards and some of them have seen play in my Zard ex decks, namely Chi-Yu, Jirachi, Professor Turo's Scenario, Technical Machine Evolution, Technical Machine Devolution but the main one being Counter Catcher, a card that would see play in Zard ex in pretty much every version of the deck since release. It was the perfect pair, Zard ex decks always want to go behind on prizes to do more damage, and Counter Catcher can only be used when behind on prizes, so it was the perfect comeback card alongside Iono.

But it wasn't just Counter Catcher, a friend of mine had told me about this idea of playing Rotom V simply for it's ability to draw 3 cards and end my turn. It also made sense for the deck as you're usually not attack in the first or 2nd turn so why not just sit behind a Rotom V and keep drawing cards to build our boards up. 

And the bonus is, Rotom V is another target for Forest Seal Stone! To me this was the first perfect list for Charizard ex, now with Counter Catch and Rotom V and I brought it for the Regional League 2, one of our major events at that time. I didn't do well though, going 5-3 but I was still happy with how the deck had worked.

The list was much different to what it was from the winning Curitiba list months on. We now had 2 different Charmanders to use, and they both had 70 HP so they were both safe from Sableye. There was also a new Pidgey from MEW set that whilist having only 50 HP, but could get 2 Basic mons down onto the bench. 

Switch and Escape Rope were quite exchangeable, and our Super Rod count went up to 2, which would become the stable for Zard ex moving forward. Artazon and Collapsed stadium always felt like the right additions to the deck, as we want Charmanders and Pidgey on the field and with Collapsed Stadium, we can get rid of Lumineon V or Rotom V from our board before they get picked off as Boss Targets.

Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex with Arven V4 - Buddy-Buddy Poffin

Time Period: March 2024

Top 4: 1 (1 Online)

Online - Sunny's Weekly #150 -  4th/120

Rotation time! Gone are cards like Battle VIP Pass, Mew and Level Ball and with the introduction of Temporal Forces, we got Buddy-Buddy Poffin, Gouging Fire ex, Dudunsparce, Eri, Ciphermaniac's Codebreaking, Mist Energy and the biggest introduction from this set, Ace Spec cards! The best ones were Prime Catcher, Maximum Belt and Hero's Cape, all which had seen play in Zard ex. Sure there was Neo Upper Energy that was only good with Dragapult ex.

But apart from that, the deck didn't lose much from rotation. We had still had our Charizard ex line, we still had our Pidgeot ex line, we still had Lumineon V and Rotom V + Forest Seal Stone, Arven, and everything else to make the deck click. Losing Battle VIP Pass meant playing Nest Ball to help get Rotom V into play to use Instant Charge. I even tried stuff like Eri + TM Devo to help against other Stage 2 decks (didn't help much). The deck was still ok, and then Tord Reklev decided to make it even better.

Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex/Bibarel

Time Period: April 2024-July 2024

Wins: 2 (1 Online + 1 IRL)

Top 4: 11 (6 Online + 5 IRL)

Points Scored IRL: 275 CP

2023-24 Singapore Championships @ NTU Alumni Club - 49th/342

The best player in the world, Tord Reklev, won EUIC with Zard Pidgeot but now with some interesting inclusions, one that made me really happy as I have tried to make it work, which was a 1-1 Bibarel line! Search 1 card out with Pidgeot ex is always great but sometimes I wanted to draw more cards which is why I kept trying to add the Bibarel line into the deck and glad to see a top player making it work. 

Everything else was just standard in the deck, although his addition of Team Yell's Cheer was not something I was keen on. I played this combo for a good 4 months leading up to the Singapore Championships, and was in a win-and-in game for top cut where I did one of my worst misplays in the mirror match and cost myself a spot in top cut. I wasn't chasing for the Worlds invite that year anyway but I wanted to see if I could at least get one good result with Zard Pidgeot and still hadn't gotten one yet.

The Cleffa addition to he deck might be my favourite, since you don't really want to attack and can draw up to 7 cards in the deck but it did give us that headache, go with Cleffa to draw up to 7 or the constant draw with Rotom, especially on the first turn for 3 cards. Till this day I still don't know which one is better but it's nice to have options at least, especially with prize cards involved. 

The main struggle I had during this time was whether to go with Maximum Belt or Prime Catcher. We did have Unfair Stamp at this time but I wasn't sold on it. I kept flip-flopping over the other two and for Nats, I went with Prime Catcher + Defiance Band. Heck I even went down to 3 Arven (as did Tord to be fair) to be a bit more risky to add in more stuff to counter the likes of Lost Box and Dragapult, thus the Jirachi inclusion. 

Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex with Arven V5 - (TM Evolution + Rabsca + Kieran)

Time Period: May 2024

Wins: 1 (1 Online)

Top 4: 2 (1 Online + 1 IRL)

Online - Getpoké Presenta: Poké Noches de Fiesta #7 - 1st/22

And now onto the release of Twilight Masquerade, a set that would end up giving me the biggest headache of them all, Dragapult ex! There's also Cornerstone Mask Ogerpon ex, Froslass and Munkidori, another 3 cards that made Charizard ex life a living hell. Yeah this set kinda sucked. But back to Pult, that thing would end up being a painful thorn in the side of all of us Charizard players for a good 1.5 years, especially so when Budew showed up. But Zard ex also gained some stuff, Kieran was one I was happy to get because now I could add even more damage to reach higher numbers much earlier, and I would keep teching in Kieran for the next year or so still!


But perhaps the biggest addition were two ace spec cards, Secret Box and Unfair Stamp. Both have seen play in Charizard ex, I've tried them both and I'm sure others liked them whenever they were useful, but I was never a big fan of either in all honesty. Secret Box is great but Zard was that deck that didn't want to discard cards in the first place so that was painful. Stamp was cool, a disruption card like the old Reset Stamp, but it never seemed to work well for me whenever I needed it to stick. 

I also tried out the new Rabsca line in my Zard decks to see if it would help out in the Dragapult matchup and this is where the newest staple addition to Charizard ex decks came in, two TM Evolution! At first I just wanted to get the Rabsca up and running right away but to make this idea work, we needed Stage 1 mons so Pidgeotto was finally added to ease the burden of Rare Candy on Pidgeots and of course Charmeleon, and now with 2 in the list. That would end up becoming a staple for Zard lists now right up till the very end, especially with the release of Budew at the start of 2025! The V mon + Forest Seal Stone combo had to go sadly as it didn't quite work well with the whole TM Evo gameplan now. 

Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex with Dragapult ex

Time Period: June 2024-July 2024

Tabletop Village Locals Win-a-Box Event, Seattle, Washington, USA - 7th/29

Yet another cool list from the brilliant mind of Tord Reklev who piloet this Zard/Pidgeot and Dragapult ex deck to an 18th place finish at the North American International Championships. I just so happen to be in Canada for my cousin's wedding at that time and I did bring some of my cards with me and I had the pieces for my Zard deck but also pieces to a Pult deck so I knew I had to try this out.

And I knew I was heading off to Seattle for the next part of my trip so I had to drop by the world famous Tabletop Village and got to play in their local event which turned into a win a box event. I made top cut in it having never played this deck before, which shows you how good the deck really is! 

I felt like Drakloak took over Bibarel's spot in having some sort of draw power with Reacon Directive with the extra bonus of being able to have a secondary attacker with Dragapult ex. Or technically it's the other way round, we'd attack with Pult first and then have Zard clean up after that. I didn't play much of it, but it was a cool new way to play Zard, shame it didn't last long.

Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex/Dusknoir V1 - (Dusknoir + Fezandipiti ex)

Time Period: August 2024-September 2024

Wins: 1 (1 Online)

Top 4: 3 (2 Online + 1 IRL)

Online - Bak & Bak PokeLeague #15 - Special Early Edition! - 1st/113

Next up is the release of a mini-set Shrouded Fable but it's impact was huge, especially for Charizard ex! Maybe the best addition for the deck. Yup it's the Dusknoir line and of course, Fezandipiti ex. Fez is now the main draw power for many decks, only after a mon has been KOed. So now we had no need for Bibarel or Drakloak. Rotom V still saw played, hey it's draws us 3 cards at the start of the game while Fez ex draws us 3 cards after a KO so there's a lot of draws for a deck with no real draw engine if you didn't play Bibarel.

As for Dusknoir, it just gelled so perfectly well with Charizard ex. By using it's ability, you knock Dusclops out to put 5 damage counters anywhere on their board or 13 damage counters if it was Dusknoir. Usually that is enough for Charizard ex to start taking 2 prize KOs. Or sometimes you can use Cursed Blast to hit something, and activate Counter Catcher to get other KOs on the board. 

The inclusion of the Dusknoir line did change how Charizard ex decks look as well, we now didn't play 3 Zards but just 2 Zards, which can be tricky but it became the norm and it was honestly fine. Cleffa was gone from the list too, Dusclops taking a cheap KO just made Cleffa just unplayable now. Dusknoir changed things for Zard, but it also hurt Zard as a partner in crime for Dragapult ex. So it was a good adition but also a big killer for Charizard ex. But I'll take the positives!

Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex with Arven V6 - (Pecharunt ex + Binding Mochi)

Time Period: August 2024

Online - Hoarders CG Tournament - 24th/32

This was more of a fun idea I wanted to try that sadly just didn't work. Pecharunt ex and Binding Mochi were two other cards to come out from Shrouded Fable and well, Charizard ex is a Tera mon that is Dark type, and it works with Pecharunt ex since it's ability only works for Dark types not named Pecharunt ex. 

And with Binding Mochi, the poisoned Pokemon does 40 more damage which is always great for Charizard ex, being able to hit 220 right away which is nice, and 340 at 4 prizes which is a way to get around the mirror matches or the other Stage 2 decks. Cool concept, just never worked because well, because the Dusknoir line was just so much better.

Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex/Dusknoir V2 - (Briar)

Time Period: September 2024-January 2025

Wins: 6 (4 Online + 2 IRL)

Top 4: 14 (6 Online + 8 IRL)

Points: 54 LP

Online - TOURNAMENT OF DOOM! is listening to Lo-fi Tunes - 1st/214

2024-25 Singapore Premier Ball League @ Suntec City - 70th/409

And now comes Stellar Crown which gave Charizard one new powerful ally in the form of Briar. Briar can only be used if your opponent was at exactly 2 prizes and if you took a KO with your Tera pokemon, in this case Charizard ex, you would take an extra prize. Sure, your opponent might try to play around it but don't forget, we have got the Dusknoir line for a reason so there's plenty of ways to make sure our opponent goes down to 2 prizes to activate Briar for either 2 prize KO or 3 prize KO.

And of course, I chose to play Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex/Dusknoir with Briar for our first big major event of the season with the Premier Ball League, which was the start of a revamped new look to the season for us. I didn't have the best of starts, losing R1 but ended up 5-2, with four of those wins coming from Briar being my last KO so I already knew how good it was and was glad to have it in my deck. I went back to Max Belt for this event and it paid off for sure!

Then came the release of Surging Sparks and I tried a few new stuff in the deck, one of them being Precious Trolley which felt great to get Rotom, Charmander, Pidgey, Duskull and whoever you may need down. It's like Battle VIP Pass, but doubled and can be played at any time. And we still had Arven to help search it out. But it was painful whenever we prized it, especially with just 1 Buddy-Buddy Poffin in the list. I did play a lot of this list during this period, it was just so fun to play.

Online - Bak & Bak PokeLeague #25 - 1st/22

Charizard ex/Noctowl V1

Time Period: November 2024-December 2024

Top 4: 2 (2 Online)

Online - Poli's Pop Up Mickey #1 - 3rd/24

Also during the time of the release of Stellar Crown, a few great cards were released, namely Noctowl , Terapagos ex and Area Zero Underdepths (to help expand the board). When I read Noctowl, I just knew I had to try it out with Charizard ex, getting two Trainer cards when you played down Noctowl if you have a Tera pokemon on board so there was a way to get Rare Candy or Ultra Ball or whatever it may be to set up the board perfectly. Keep this in mind for the latter part of this article.

Tera Orb was released in Surging Sparks and gave us a much better way to search out for Charizard ex, so now a Noctowl could completely set up a Charizard by searching out for Tera Orb and Rare Candy. Or for Pidgeot ex, Feather Ball and Rare Candy. It was a cool new way to play Charizard ex, I tried it a few times online and some locals but just did not have much success with it and went back to the traditonal build of Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex. It won't be my last time dabbling with Noctowl and Charizard ex!

Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex/Dusknoir V3 - Grand Tree

Time Period: January 2025

Online TOURNAMENT OF DOOM! BEST CHEESE EDITION! - 20th/179

This was another idea I wanted to try, Grand Tree! It felt like it should work well with Pidgey or Duskull to get a Pidgeot ex or Dusknoir right away because of Grand Tree. Charizard ex? Nope it would only work if you have already attached two Fire energies attached to it and you don't need to use Infernal Reign since it was evolved right away by Grand Tree. I only played it a hanful of times, it was not so bad but it just wasn't the right way to play Charizard/Pidgeot/Dusknoir I felt.

Charizard ex/Dusknoir V1 - Dudunsparce Engine

Time Period: February 2025

Online T

ournoi amical LEAGUE canto N30°

- 8th/58

And now we come to the dark ages for Charizard. Prismatic Evolutions was released in January 2025 and well it didn't have much in the set except for one tiny Grass Pokémon with just 30 HP and no energy needed to attack. Yup I'm talking about the devil itself, Budew. Sure it made the game slower but the one deck that got affected by it the most was sadly Charizard ex, now we can't just rely on Rare Candy to set up our board.

So I decided to try a different style of Zard deck I had seen doing well in Japan. The difference was, they were already in a rotated format so it doesn't quite translate to the rest of the world just yet but it still looked cool enough for me to try. It was just Charizard ex and Dusknoir with Dudunsparce as the draw engine. I actually liked the idea of having more Dusknoirs to try to go for a board wipe with Charizard ex dealing with anything, since we're giving our opponents the prizes through Dusclops and ?Dusknoir. It won't be the last time I would try to work on this idea of just Zard and Dusk.

Charizard ex/Dragapult ex V1 - Psychic Energy

Time Period: February 2025

2024-25 Singapore Great Ball League S2 #14 @ Agora Hobby - 20th/98

Well if it's the one causing me to stop playing Pidgeot ex, why not use it as well? Someone had shared the idea of Dragapult ex and Charizard ex together so I just had to give it a go. It had all the good stuff of Zard without the Pidgeot and the best draw engine in the game with Drakloak. This was also the time where Lance was still legal, allowing us to find 3 Dragon type pokemon, which meant it was quite easy to set up Dreepys and Drakloaks.

The deck felt fine, it just didn't feel as good as say Dragapult by itself or Charizard ex with Pidgeot ex, it didn't really solve the Budew issue for me either. And Unfair Stamp now felt worse because of Budew too. Still a good idea nonetheless, and the deck would get much better post rotation.

Charizard ex/Dusknoir V2 - Jacq/Research Engine

Time Period: May 2025

Online - Card Temple Weekly Battles #13 - 6th/101

Now onto post rotation, F-Block is gone and that means no more Lumineon V, no more Rotom V, no more Forest Seal Stone, no more Collapsed Stadium, no Thorton and no Radiant Charizard. A lot of good cards gone for Charizard ex and while I did try to work on the usual Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex list, nothing felt good for me, it just got demolished by Dragapult ex/Dusknoir, the deck that we all feared would be BDIF post rotation.

So I waited to see if anyone could crack Charizard ex post rotation and then Milwaukee Regional happened. There was a Charizard ex deck that finished 32nd thanks to John Roberts II, and while it wasn't the usual build, I was more than happy to see it being the Zard Dusknoir build, something I had enjoyed playing the first time out. This time with no Dudunsparce engine, or any Pokemon draw engine for that matter, it was really just the Charizard line, the Dusknoir line, Chi-Yu, Budew and Iron Bundle, that's it. And that's all we needed really.

This version of Zard Dusk felt much better than before, now with Arven + TM Evo and Precious Trolley to set the board up as perfectly as possible, and there are a lot of times where I would go TM Evo for two turns in a row to get Dusknoirs ready for action. PokeGear was added to help get Arven or even stuff like Jacq or Boss for turns where either we want to build the board or start taking KOs. 

The deck had a real potential to wipe boards out and I was doing well in testing with it, also against Dragapult ex/Dusknoir! So much so I almost played this at the 2025 Melbourne Regional with very little testing time with the deck, I just liked it that much but I did end up going back to Pult Dusk, which did get me the Day 2 finish in the end.

Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex/Dusknoir V4 - Pretty much the same as V2 but Post Rotation

Time Period: June 2025-September 2025

Top 4: 4 (2 Online + 2 IRL)

Online - Card Temple Weekly Battles #16 - 2nd/88

Rotation has come and gone and I went back to working on Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex, now without some friends I had mentioned in the previous post. So there was a lot of stuff needed to replace the rotated cards. Cleffa was a natural inclusion to take Rotom V's spot but there was no clear cut replacement for Lumineon V or Radiant Charizard. 

TM Evo was back and with Budew running around, it was important to find ways to set up under item lock so TM Evo and Jacq were necessary for the deck, along with Pidgeotto and an extra Charmeleon and even Charizard going back up to a 3 count! Max Belt was always a welcome return, I always thought it was the best Ace Spec card for Charizard ex. 

But even with all of that, yeah it was still a rough time to be playing Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex, I didn't win a local event or an online event for that 4 month period with it and there was a good reason for it. Dragapult was just everywhere during this time, forcing me to look elsewhere while still trying to find a good answer to my Dragapult problem. That answer did show up not long after.

Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex/Munkidori V1

Time Period: June 2025-August 2025

Top 4: 1 (1 IRL)

Online - The Smart Series #4 - 58th/685

Maybe instead of Dusknoir....why not Munkidori? I saw Gabriel Fernandez winning NAIC in the Senior division with this Slow Zard build, with Munkidori to make it more of a defensive build, especially with the double TM Evo and Energy Search to get Pidgeotto ready by the end of Turn 1, which was much better to pull off now that there were 2 Pidgeottos in the deck.

Cleffa still gave us options in case we missed the TM Evo turn. But me being me, I still wanted some explosive turns so I kept the Maximum Belt and Briar to go aggro when I needed. The deck actually felt decent into Dragapult so that was a plus for me. The deck was fine but it still lacked something to bring it back to it's glory days. 

Charizard ex/Dragapult ex V2 - Luminous Energy

Time Period: June 2025-August 2025

Wins: 1 (IRL)

Top 4: 2 (1 IRL + 1 Online)

Points: 25 LP

2024-25 Singapore Master Ball League @ Suntec City - 26th/524

In the lead up to the Master Ball League, I will admit I was a bit lost on what to play. Charizard ex/Pidgeot was in a horrible spot in the format and nothing else felt good for me. So while I was in California for my cousin's wedding, I tuned in to watch a special pre-NAIC event featuring some of the best players and Rowan Stavenow won with this build of Pult Zard.

He and his crew brought it to NAIC and a number of them did well, 3 of them getting Top 32 finishes with this exact list. I had already built it during this time and started testing it while I was still in California. I didn't want to trouble myself anymore and just stuck with the deck. The main difference between this one and the earlier Pult Zard was it was just felt much better, and having the option of Luminous Energy was way better, not just for Dragapult ex to attack but also to use with Munkidori and also sometimes for Charizard to attack too! 

I had everything I liked in the list, even the 1 Jamming Tower felt great a number of times. The Counter Catcher + Iono that worked so well for Pult Dusk also works well for Pult Zard. And we also had options for the first turn, we could either go in with Budew to item lock or TM Evo to build the board up. The only big miss for me in this deck was Unfair Stamp, that card did nothing for me and it really should have been anything else. 

But I did surprise myself with the deck. I brought it to a local event just to see how it would go and got 1st, beating two decks I thought I would have a bad matchup to. And then the main event, I didn't really have much expecations so to make top cut after a 5-0 start was a really nice surprise for me. I wish I could have gone on longer for top cut but a double brick hand got me. For some reason, this was the last time I played Pult Zard, it was still a good deck for the next season but I just never went back to it for whatever reason.

Charizard ex/Dusknoir V3 - Iono/Research Engine

Time Period: July 2025

Wins: 1 (Online)

Top 4: 2 (2 Online)

Online - Tournoi amical LEAGUE canto N39° - 1st/30

I told you I really liked this deck so I had to keep trying it out, even after the season was over in June. I had no real reason to play for the months of July-September, but I just wanted to keep trying out this idea at my local events or online events. 

This version was a bit more stable, this time with no Precious Trolley but now trying out Secret Box to help with some combo turns. I will say Briar probably should have been in the list. Tatsugiri and Fez were welcome additions, to help the deck with draw power and helping to get that perfect Turn 1, aka Arven for TM Evo and Buddy-Buddy Poffin or Energy Search to get Charmeleon or Dusclops up after Turn 1 or set up the board wipe turn if possible. Stretcher was a good addition too, as it allowed for repeat use of Dusknoir. Something still felt missing for the deck which someone else would solve a few weeks later.

Charizard ex/Dusknoir V4 - Tatsugiri/Jet Energy Engine

Time Period: July 2025-August 2025

Wins: 3 (1 Online + 2 IRL)

Top 4: 4 (1 Online + 3 IRL)

1st - Locals at Infero Gaming and Goodness Gracious Games, 1st/14 and 1st/6

Then the 5th Tournament of Doom Regional championships happened and the deck that won? Yup Charizard ex/Dusknoir! The list was not much different to what I had been playing for a while but now with 2 Tatsugiri and 3 Jet Energy, which made so much sense to me, since that's the easiest way to get the supporter we need, and this deck was very reliant on the Turn 1 Arven play to get TM Evo going. 

So I took it and got 3 wins, twice at my locals and one in an online event. At this time, the Black Bolt and White Flare mini sets were released, which did give us the turn of Air Balloon which was a welcome addition to the deck as it was very reliant on Tatsugiri not just for the first turn Arven for TM Evo+Poffin but now we can rely on Tatsugiri to help get us Iono or Boss and have the retreat pivot with Air Balloon. 

This deck was so much fun, I wish I had played it at an official event but it just never worked out, because it's best period was during the down time for us in Singapore, aka the end of Master Ball 2025 in June and just before the start of Premier Ball 2025-26 in November.

Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex/Dusknoir V5 - (Lillie's Determination + Klefki/Jet Combo)

Time Period: October 2025-March 2026

Top 4: 4 (2 Online + 2 IRL)

Points: 10 LP

2025-26 Singapore Premier Ball League @ Suntec City - 92nd/647

We're back to good ol' Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex but what got me back into it was seeing Waipan Mak doing really well with a cool build at the Yokohama Champions League and then Jackson Ford later won the Milwaukee Regional with a similar build about a month later. So what changed? Well now with the introduction of Psyduck in the format, we needed a way to deal with it so Klefki + Jet Energy was the most obvious answer to be able to use Dusknoir even with Psyduck in play as it's ability is shut down by Klefki.

But the other big addition for the deck was Lillie's Determination from the latest Mega Evolution set. Shuffling your hand and drawing 6 is really nice, but if you hadn't taken a prize yet, that number goes up to 8 and Charizard ex is one of those decks that don't typically take prizes early so that was an obvious addition to the deck in my mind. So I was ready to lock in this build for the upcoming Premier Ball League in the hopes to get my Worlds invite for San Francisco in 2026.

It still wasn't the best meta for Charizard in all honesty, because Dragapult, even with Psyduck around, was still the most played deck in Singapore and made me question if I should stick with Charizard. But after all, it was to be my last major event with Charizard ex, so I had to give it one last good run. 

And in my last major even with it, I made top cut, and now on Limitless there will always be a Charizard and Pidgeot icon next to my name so this list will always have a special place in my heart (but not the only one, more on that later). I wish I could have done a lot better but bo1 stuff got me in top cut. This was probably the best the deck had felt in over a year! 

I did try the deck out again a few more times in the early part of 2026 to see if I could make it work but it's terrible matchup to Dawn Zard made me realise it just wasn't the right build of Zard to go at that time. I did get a Top 4 finish with it at a win-a-box event, which also happened to be the last time I would play this version of Zard with Pidgeot, Dusknoir and Arven all in one build.

Card Collector Corner - Locals - 3rd/23

But here's a funny little tidbit for everyone, I almost switched to a very different looking Charizard ex deck for this event, that had the brand new Dawn card from Phantasmal Flames that was legal for play for PBL because of the theme decks that was released. Makes me wonder what would have happened and I switched to it, the only reason I didn't was because I never got my Dawns in time for the event. This isn't the last time I'll talk about Dawn Zard though!

Dawn Zard list I had prepared for PBL as my backup choice

Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex/Munkidori V2 - (Lillie's Determination + Psyduck)

Time Period: October 2025-November 2025

Online - TOURNAMENT OF DOOM! MOOD IS DOOM BACKWARDS - 59th/237

Because of Dragapult's increased presence in the meta, I felt like I had no choice but to keep trying to make this Munkidori build of Charizard ex work and I'll be honest, it never really felt good to me. I always preferred the Dusknoir build or even the Noctowl build I was testing out during this time, this just felt slow and even though it's built to have a better time into Dragapult ex, I found myself still losing to it and it also made my better matchups much worse.

Even with Lillie and Psyduck now in he deck, the deck just didn't feel as good as Gabriel's list from NAIC. I know he did well with his build at LAIC but it just never gelled for me at all. But the clear cut answers were coming in the next set that made the deck way better!

Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex/Munkidori V3 - (Dawn + Battle Cage)

Time Period: November 2025-March 2026

Wins: 5 (5 IRL)

Top 4: 9 (9 IRL)

Points: 54 LP

2025-26 Singapore Great Ball League S3 #22 @ ManaPro - 1st/42

Now it's the release of Phantasmal Flames and with it came two really good cards for Charizard ex. Dawn was a natural addition for the deck because it searched for a Basic Pokemon, a Stage 1 Pokemon and a Stage 2 Pokemon, and of course this deck is very reliant on the Stage 2s so all 3 types were equally important, especially whenever we are under item lock from Budew which felt like it was like 50% of my games at this point of the meta.

The other inclusion was Battle Cage. Now I know what you're thinking....well that means we can't use Dusknoir on their benched mons. Yes so that's why I went back to working on the Munkidori build of Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex, more as a direct counter to Dragapult ex because Battle Cage firstly stopped their Dusknoir AND Dragapult's Phantom Dive's secondary effect of the damage placement, which a lot of people had a hard dealing with if you'd keep bumping their Jamming Tower with Battle Cage. 

I saw Sejun Park had been having a lot of success in the PTCGL ladder and some online events with this build so I had to go try it out and I could tell right away, this was the perfect build to beat Dragapult, and it had answers to a few other stuff as well. Chi-Yu and Moltres were great answers to the meta as well, be it Gholdengo ex, Teal Mask Ogerpon ex, or the pesky one-prizer decks. 

After a long time struggling with the Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex, I was suddenly getting a lot of good results IRL and after so long of trying, with so many different builds, I finally got my first official win with the Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex build of the deck with the Munkidori version at Mana Pro's GBL in March 2026, took me 2+ years to get it but I glad I got one! But if you think this was my most successful version of Charizard ex in the latter part of it's lifespan, may I introduce you to easily my most successful Zard variant, Dawn Zard!

Charizard ex/Noctowl V2 - Dawn Zard V1

Time Period: December 2025-February 2026

Wins: 8 (3 Online + 5 IRL)

Top 4: 14 (5 Online + 9 IRL)

Points: 180 LP

3 Great Ball League wins, 1st/32 in all 3 events

Dawn Zard, the very deck that not just turned my season around, but is single-handedly helping my push to get my 2nd Worlds invite in San Francisco. When I first read about Dawn from Phantsmal Flames, I already knew how I wanted to play it. It'll get me my Pidgeot ex or my Charizard ex, and obviously the basic. The big question was the Stage 1, I toyed around with a few different draw engines for it, be it Dudunsparce or Drakloak but then Noctowl came to mind.

And apparently I wasn't the only one thinking of this idea, because I saw Oscar Madsen post about Dawn Zard months before the set was legal and I knew right away the idea was legit. So I asked him about it and we got to work on Dawn Zard and he helped build the first list for me for the Premier Ball League in November that I showed a couple of entries ago. Unfortunately no-one was willing to help me get Dawn in time so I settled back to the usual Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex. But I still wanted to work on Dawn Zard.

And then came the Stuttgart Regional where Nicolai Stiborg won with Dawn Zard, it's first event and the deck got a win right out of the bag! Everyone was surprised to see it doing well but not me, I always knew it was good! Our events hadn't started yet but sadly now my surprise factor with Dawn Zard is out of the bag. But that didn't stop the deck from giving me the best run of my career so far. 

In one week, I managed to win 3 Great Ball Leagues with the exact same 60 list, not the same as Nicolai because I cut a Nest Ball for Pidgeotto because after all, we're in Singapore, the home of the Dragapult ex lovers so I needed an answer to Budew and that Pidgeotto sure helped me out a bunch. That Pidgeotto stayed on as a staple for me. Everything else was what you've seen, with the two Terapagos ex as our secondary attacker, and sometimes first choice attacker into stuff like Mega Box, Mega Kangaskhan, Teal Mask Ogerpon ex, or for the Briar + Prime Catcher combo on stuff like Fezanditipi ex. 

Starting 2026 off at Toreca Camp's New Years event in Nagoya playing a Japanese Dawn Zard!

And of course, we can't forget our deadly trio of Charizard ex, Pidgeot ex and Dusknoir, now with a new friend Noctowl. It only works when there's a Tera Pokemon on board, which is why we play 4 Dawn to make sure we get one of our two Terapagos ex down on the board to activate Noctowl, which gets us any two Trainer cards, which means Items, Supporters, Stadiums, whatever you want! And from that Noctowl, usually it's a Rare Candy + Dawn or whatever to get Pidgeot ex up, and then Charizard ex, and we're off to the races. 

The deck was super aggressive, it could just outspeed many things with how explosive it can be from the Noctowls and the Dusk line and Zard doing it's thing along with Prime Catcher getting a vital target, even it's worse matchups and clear up some weak boards and leave them with nothing much to respond with. I loved this deck, this was probably my favourite way to play Charizard ex, I've always believed it should be an aggro deck and it just suited me perfectly and the results speak for itself. 

Usually most of my results came from online events or just local events, never mostly from official IRL events, this was the one rare time where most of my top results with a deck came from official IRL events, namely the Great Ball Leagues and plus, 180 LP with one deck is quite a big amount! If I make it to the World Championships in San Francisco this year (2026), I can thank one deck for doing most of the work for me.

Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex with Mega Charizard ex X and Y

Time Period: January 2026-March 2026

Win: 1 (1 IRL)

Top 4: 2 (1 Online + 2 IRL)

Online - Wild Fox x Curious Cup PTCG Daily Tournament - 4th/33

So I actually had my first taste with this build of Charizard ex when I was in Japan, it was similar to the Munkidori build but now with either the Mega Charizard X ex or Mega Charizard Y ex as the additional attack for the deck. I'll be honest, I wasn't much of a fan of Mega Charizard X ex. Sure it's got a great attack, hitting 90 for each Fire energy you discarded anywhere on the field but trying to constantly get those energies on board could be tricky so it was more of an early attack or a late game closer.

Mega Charizard Y ex on the other hand, that one was much more simpler but to me way better because it could snipe anything for 280 damage. You had to discard 3 energy to use it but with Ignition Energy, that pays the cost of the discard! And 280 is a big number, hitting stuff like Pidgeot ex, N's Zoroark ex and even Mega Absol ex on the bench is quite cool! 

Ragnarok Gaming Locals - Tokyo, Japan - 3rd/8

I do hope to make Mega Charizard X ex and Mega Charizard Y ex work in the future but without Tera Charizard ex and Pidgeot ex, the deck will feel a lot worse, especially now that the only Charmander we can use is the 80 HP ones, so we can't even use Buddy-Buddy Poffin to set them up. And in case anyone was wondering and I'm sure someone will ask about it, but yes I did play Mega Charizard X ex a few times, these two lists didn't have it but I did win one local with it. The rest of my attemps with it, let's just say I'd rather forget them, one of which broke my perfect 100% points scoring record with Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex in official events in March, just one month before it rotated. 

Deckard Gaming Locals - 1st/8

Charizard ex/Noctowl V3 - Dawn Zard + Wellspring Mask Ogerpon ex

Time Period: January 2026-March 2026

Wins: 1 (1 IRL)

Top 4: 4 (2 Online + 2 IRL)

Points: 42 LP

2025-26 Singapore Great Ball League S3 #35 @ Ah Kit Shop - 1st/32 - My last event with Charizard ex

And now to the last build of Charizard ex I played, the other version of Dawn Zard, the one with Wellspring Ogerpon ex, which I wasn't a big fan of. It never did as well for as as the OG Dawn Zard. But it will always stick in my mind as it will always be the last Charizard ex deck I played at any event, and I won that event and it pushed me past the 220 point mark to make my hopes of getting to Worlds 2026 that bit better. 

It's got all the same pieces but now instead of two Terapagos ex, there's a split of Basic Tera mons and also a Water energy for Wellspring Mask Ogerpon ex to attack, mainly for Torrential Pump for the snipe but there's been a few times where I've won games because of Sob either buying me enough turns to make a comeback play or trapping my opponent forever as they have no outs to get out of Sob lock.

But this version is a bit different to the other Wellspring Ogerpon Mask ex build. There's Sparkling Crystal which can help to make back-to-back Torrential Pumps attack more easier as re-charging it with Charizard ex is not always going to happen. There's also Air Balloon to make it easier to retreat stuff like Noctowl, Terapagos ex or even Charizard ex. And the secret weapon? Pecharaunt ex just to get around Clutch from Yveltal or other Sobbers from Mask Wellspring Ogerpon ex.

It's not the worst Charizard ex/Noctowl deck I've played, it just wasn't my favourite as having to rely on Wellspring Oger has it's challenges, especially when people can play around it by using Turo, Switch or even Shaymin to stop the spread damage from happening and trust me, I've seen Shaymin in decks it shouldn't be in, namely Dragapult! 

Newly added to my own personal Wall of Frame!

And that was all she wrote. My time with Charizard ex has come and gone and I kept my promise, I said I would play it from the day it was released up till the day it was not longer legal to play and I'm glad I got to stick to that promise. Sure there were some periods where Charizard ex was just not a viable option due to the meta, be it Regidrago VSTAR or Dragapult ex or right at the end where all of it's worst matchup got even better, but I always tried my best to make it work.

And it's quite ironic that we started the journey with Charizard ex, Pidgeot ex and a colourless Pokemon that evolved from a Basic, from Arceus VSTAR to Noctowl, both of them being able to search out cards to help me get Pidgeot ex or Charizard ex evolved and on the board. And my favourite little trivia about this, I won with my first attempt with Charizard ex and also my last attempt with it! And here is the final comparison, the first list and the last list:

Only 21 cards were the same, which is 35% of the deck, but that was to be expected as the earlier cards would rotate twice and we'd get more cards to add as the years went on, be it new variants of Charmander, new staple additions like the Dusknoir line, new broken supporters like Dawn or Lillie (which wasn't played in the last list), and one that should be on here but sadly isn't, which is Arven that tied Charizard ex together for the most part of the journey, it just didn't feature in the first or last list. 

We lost Battle VIP Pass, we gained Buddy-Buddy Poffin, tool cards came and went, new support mons like Tatsugiri and Fezandipiti ex would take over the spots held by Mew and Lumineon V/Rotom V. But it was always Charizard ex and Pidgeot ex. 

From Quick Searching anything I needed to Infernal Regin powering up any attacker I needed and winning games with the deadly Buring Darkness for 300+ damage! The dynamic duo have served me well, thanks for the memories! It's going to be a tough task for any card from now on to replace Charizard ex as my favourite Pokemon TCG card of all time! Thank you for reading!

Every card I have ever played in a Charizard ex deck