Kash Top 25 List: Best Pokemon cards released in 2025 (stats based)

It’s almost the end of 2025 and it’s a good time to look back and reflect on the year, and in this instance we’re looking at cards that were released in 2025. Loads of cards were introduced this year, including the return of not one but two different mechanics, Trainer’s Pokémon and Mega Evolution Pokémon (now with a different ruling).

So as per the yearly tradition now, I wanted to rank the best cards released this year and that will be based on stats from results of big major IRL events and also online events featuring 256 or more players. And I wanted to use a points system to rank these cards.

The way I did the points was quite simple:

• 1st - 5 points
• 2nd - 3 points
• 3rd and 4th - 2 points
• 5th to 8th - 1 point

And if you see the average points and was wondering how I calculated it, quite simple:

• Points scored from each set (termed as S1 to S5)/Events in each set
• The total of the average/how many sets they were played in = Average Points Scored per Sets

The tournaments included in these are any event that is recorded on Limitless for this year that had cards released this year (so no Korean League Season 2, Rio de Janerio, Birmingham and San Antonio). Also included are any Play Limitless online tournament that hit 256+ players. If I had included 128 like I used to, there would be too many and it might dilute the information, and there were just enough to make everything look perfect as S3 and S4 were lacking in IRL tournaments, so online had the most events, especially in S4, to help make the numbers more event. If anyone was wondering:

• S1 (BRS to PRE)
• 8 IRL events
• 4 Online events
• S2 (SVI to JTG)
• 15 IRL events
• 6 Online events
• S3 (SVI to DRI)
• 6 IRL events
• 7 Online events
• S4 (SVI to BLK/WHT)
• 6 IRL events
• 28 Online events
• S5 (SVI to MEG)
• 9 IRL events
• 16 Online events
• S6 (SVI to PFL)
• 5 IRL events
• 8 Online events

Results are as of December 24th, so any online events that were to happen between then and 31st, unfortunately I just don't have enough time to update it all and I don't think it will change this list much anyway.

For the results:

• Wins are wins, pretty easy
• Top 4 will be results from 2nd, 3rd or 4th, not including wins
• Top 8 will be results from 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th, and nothing from the above included

Some cards just missed out and honestly it wasn’t that much of a miss. Cards like Flareon ex, Maractus, Tool Scrapper, Team Rocket’s Petrel, Battle Cage, Mega Lopunny ex and Mega Mawile ex all just missed out on this list.

And with that, here are the best 25 cards released in 2025, not done by any sort of opinion or favoritism, just good old statistics and numbers, my favourite! And why just 25? 2025, that's why. We need to keep the gimmick going. Again. For another year. Because why not, I love it!

As for the "saw play in" sector for the cards, I will keep it to 5, not to make the list any more messy than it might already be. For the ones latter on in the list, I usually put the top 5 decks that used it the most from lists on Limitless.

#25 - Team Rocket's Watchtower - Destined Rivals (DRI)

Type: Stadium

Total Points: 44 (26th)

Average Points Scored per Sets: 0.61 (26th)

Points

• S1 - Not Released
• S2 - Not Released
• S3 - 11 / Avg - 0.84
• S4 - 9 / Avg - 0.26
• S5 - 14 / Avg - 0.56
• S6 - 10 / Avg - 0.77

Wins: 3

Top 4: 8

Top 8: 12

Saw play in:

• N's Zoroark ex
• Dragapult ex/Charizard ex
• Gholdengo ex
• Cynthia's Garchomp ex
• Iron Thorns ex/Crustle

We start off with my least favourite stadium card in the game right now, Team Rocket's Watchtower. Its sole purpose is to slow down decks utilising colourless Pokémon as their engine. The good news is that there are loads of decks who are very reliant on the likes of Pidgeot ex, Noctowl, Squawkabilly ex and Mega Kangaskhan ex just to name a few. And let’s not forget the new Meowth ex coming soon which has the same ability as Tapu Lele GX and Lumineon V.

But it’s not just the engine, some attackers are affected by it too. Bloodmoon Ursaluna ex cannot use it’s ability to pay less energies to attack when Watchtower is live. On the flip side, Slaking ex can attack as its ability will be canceled out by Watchtower.

#24 - N's Zoroark ex - Journey Together (JTG)

Type: Stage 1 Pokémon ex

Total Points: 55 (21st)

Average Points Scored per Sets: 0.47 (30th)

Points

• S1 - Not Released
• S2 - 11 / Avg - 0.52
• S3 - 5 / Avg - 0.38
• S4 - 23 / Avg - 0.67
• S5 - 13 / Avg - 0.52
• S6 - 3 / Avg - 0.23

Wins: 3

Top 4: 12

Top 8: 14

Saw play in:

• N's Zoroark ex
• Gardevoir ex
• Archaludon ex
• Gholdengo ex

A Zoroark ex card with the Trade ability is back, but it's not the same as the previous one. That one was amazing with a great attack, this one copies attacks from your bench. And they aren't all that great to be fair but still enough for N's Zoroark to have some presence in the meta. 

The one good thing about N’s Zoroark ex is it’s very flexible deck, it can play just about any techs and one list won’t look like the other, with so much room to play the game differently, be it a slow controlling game or keeping tempo wit your opponent or even going aggressive to run them off the game.

#23 - Crustle - Destined Rivals (DRI)

Type: Stage 1 Pokémon

Total Points: 51 (23rd)

Average Points Scored per Sets: 0.49 (27th)

Points

• S1 - Not Released
• S2 - Not Released
• S3 - 7 / Avg - 0.53
• S4 - 25 / Avg - 0.73
• S5 - 17 / Avg - 0.68
• S6 - 2 / Avg - 0.15

Wins: 3

Top 4: 11

Top 8: 12

Saw play in:

• Crustle
• N's Zoroark ex
• Mega Kangaskhan ex/Bouffalant

There will always be an annoying card like Crustle in the format, we just cannot escape it. Crustle is one of those decks that simply asks one question, “do you have an out to KO Crustle?”. Honestly there’s not much to talk about this, you either have an answer or you just lose to it.

#22 - Levincia - Journey Together (JTG)

Type: Stadium

Total Points: 54 (22nd)

Average Points Scored per Sets: 0.49 (27th)

Points

• S1 - Not Released
• S2 - 00 / Avg - 0.00
• S3 - 2 / Avg - 0.15
• S4 - 45 / Avg - 1.32
• S5 - 2 / Avg - 0.08
• S6 - 5 / Avg - 0.38

Wins: 3

Top 4: 11

Top 8: 13

Saw play in:

• Gholdengo ex
• Gholdengo ex/Joltik Box
• Raging Bolt ex/Teal Mask Ogerpon ex

The 2nd of two stadium cards on this list and it only really got good when Gholdengo ex got better in the latter half of the year. It is a good way to recover energies without relying on Superior Energy Retrieval, especially when you can’t use it under item lock from either Budew or Frillish.

I’m surprised it’s not seen more play in other decks using Lighting Energy, recovering 2 for free from a stadium is good value. Gholdengo still makes the best use of this because it does want to have as many energies as possible in hand.

#21 - Charmeleon - Phantasmal Flames (PFL)

Type: Stage 1 Pokémon

Total Points: 26 (30th)

Average Points Scored per Sets: 2.00 (13th)

Points

• S1 - Not Released
• S2 - Not Released
• S3 - Not Released
• S4 - Not Released
• S5 - Not Released
• S6 - 26 / Avg - 2

Wins: 1

Top 4: 6

Top 8: 7

Saw play in:

• Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex
• Charizard ex/Noctowl
• Dragapult ex/Charizard ex

Hang on, what is a normal looking Charmeleon doing on here? It's attack only does 40 damage, what's so special about it you ask? Well, the 110 HP is quite big for a Stage 1 Pokemon! 

And so far all Charizard ex decks, be it the Pidgeot ex build, the Noctowl build or even the Dragapult ex build, they’ve all preferred to use the 110 HP Charmeleon and this likely to stay until rotation in April.

#20 - Hoothoot - Prismatic Evolutions (PRE)

Type: Basic Pokémon

Total Points: 83 (15th)

Average Points Scored per Sets: 0.68 (25th)

Points

• S1 - 00 / Avg - 0.00
• S2 - 38 / Avg - 1.81
• S3 - 17 / Avg - 1.31
• S4 - 18 / Avg - 0.52
• S5 - 9 / Avg - 0.36
• S6 - 1 / Avg - 0.07

Wins: 5

Top 4: 15

Top 8: 22

Saw play in:

• Tera Box
• Raging Bolt ex/Teal Mask Ogerpon ex
• Flareon ex/Noctowl

You might be asking, what the heck is a Hoothoot doing on here? If you remember from last year's list, Jewell Seeking Noctowl just missed out because it came out late and Tera-style decks didn't do much last year. It sure has made an impact this year, especially in the current format. 

So why this Hoothoot? 80 HP protects it from being KOed by the combination of Hawlucha and Dragapult’s Phantom Dive which is only 70 damage. And you need the Hoothoot to stick around to get Noctowl going so it’s perfect for it’s role.

#19 - Jellicent ex - White Flare (WHT)

Type: Stage 1 Pokémon ex

Total Points: 75 (18th)

Average Points Scored per Sets: 1.31 (21st)

Points

• S1 - Not Released
• S2 - Not Released
• S3 - Not Released
• S4 - 15 / Avg - 0.44
• S5 - 30 / Avg - 1.2
• S6 - 30 / Avg - 2.31

Wins: 7

Top 4: 12

Top 8: 12

Saw play in:

• Gardevoir ex/Jellicent ex
• Dragapult ex

Jellicent ex is another one of those item-locking mons but it's not from an attack this time, it's from its ability while in active, and it also locks Tools cards! So it’s a very difficult 270 HP mon to deal with under both item and tool lock. The only way to get out of it is KOing it or gusting around it. 

The attack is not bad too, 80 for 2 energy or 160 energy for 4 energy. And with those stats and numbers in mind, it was always bound to be a natural partner with Gardevoir ex and Munkidori. 

Garde helps to charge it and Muncie moving damage around all whilst your opponent might not be doing much because of the double lock. It is a scary threat to deal with.

#18 - Dawn - Phantasmal Flames (PFL)

Type: Supporter

Total Points: 31 (29th)

Average Points Scored per Sets: 2.38 (10th)

Points

• S1 - Not Released
• S2 - Not Released
• S3 - Not Released
• S4 - Not Released
• S5 - Not Released
• S6 - 31 / Avg - 2.38

Wins: 2

Top 4: 6

Top 8: 8

Saw play in:

• Charizard ex/Noctowl
• Dragapult ex/Dusknoir
• Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex
• Alakazam/Dudunsparce
• Mega Venusaur ex

Maybe my favourite supporter card released this year not named Lillie's Determination. I knew Dawn was good the moment I read it. Basic, Stage 1 and Stage 2 Pokémon search, it had to be good right? So I knew what deck I wanted to build around it, Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex but the Stage 1 was the missing piece and then it hit me, Noctowl! 

But I wasn't the only one with that idea, Oscar Madsen also had the same idea and we know the story now, Dawn Zard won Stuttgart Regional! Dawn is the main engine for that deck. 

But it’s also a great tech card for stuff like Pult Dusk, Zara Pidgeot and Mega Venusaur. It’s also the perfect card for a deck like Alakazam. While Dawn Zard uses Noctowl to set up the deck, Dudunsparce helps to draw more cards for this deck that wants as many cards in hand as possible.

#17 - Genesect ex - Black Bolt (BLK)

Type: Basic Pokémon ex

Total Points: 109 (13th)

Average Points Scored per Sets: 1.5 (20th)

Points

• S1 - Not Released
• S2 - Not Released
• S3 - Not Released
• S4 - 55 / Avg - 1.62
• S5 - 34 / Avg - 1.36
• S6 - 20 / Avg - 1.53

Wins: 6

Top 4: 21

Top 8: 31

Saw play in:

• Gholdengo ex/Lunatone
• Gholdengo ex/Joltik Box
• Gholdengo ex

What is it with Genesects and it always getting playable tech cards haha! This version pretty much flipped the fortunes for one Gholdengo ex. 

It was always a decent deck but once Genesect ex was released, it pretty much became one of the top tier decks in the format and as of writing, it is still one of the top decks of the current format going into it’s final few months of Gholdengo.

Being able to just search our two evolution metal Pokémon is just a great ability which is why Gholdengo as been thriving so far. I do think Genesect can find a place in annother evolving metal decks for the next few years but none of them might be as good as Gholdengo ex.

#16 - Mega Absol ex - Mega Evolutions (MEG)

Type: Basic Pokémon Mega Evolved

Total Points: 78 (17th)

Average Points Scored per Sets: 1.87 (16th)

Points

• S1 - Not Released
• S2 - Not Released
• S3 - Not Released
• S4 - Not Released
• S5 - 61 / Avg - 2.44
• S6 - 17 / Avg - 1.31

Wins: 5

Top 4: 16

Top 8: 13

Saw play in:

• Mega Box
• Tera Box
• Mega Kangaskhan ex/Bouffalant
• N's Zoroark ex

Mega Absol ex was initially overlooked by many upon release but not by the legend Tord Reklev who introduced to us the brand new Mega Box deck which is one of the most powerful decks in the current format. And it’s got two incredibly good attacks too. 

Terminal Period may look awkward needing 6 damage counters on your opponent’s active Pokémon but let’s not forget that Munkidori exists which makes it easy to get those 6 damage counters onto their active Pokémon. 

Claw of Darkness is probably the big selling point, as you can not just look at your opponent’s hand and then discard one card, and if they have a small hand size, especially after an Iono, it could be a game ender. 

#15 - Frillish - White Flare (WHT)

Type: Basic Pokémon

Total Points: 101 (14th)

Average Points Scored per Sets: 1.81 (18th)

Points

• S1 - Not Released
• S2 - Not Released
• S3 - Not Released
• S4 - 15 / Avg - 0.44
• S5 - 44 / Avg - 1.76
• S6 - 42 / Avg - 3.23

Wins: 8

Top 4: 20

Top 8: 15

Saw play in:

• Gardevoir ex
• Gardevoir ex/Jellicent ex
• Pidgeot ex Control
• Mega Box
• Dragapult ex

Wait hang on we just saw Jellicent ex, why is Frillish ahead of it? Quite simply, it's the Psychic version of Budew and spoiler alert, it's quite high up on this list for a good reason. And more decks can simply just use one Frillish for the item lock, and you don’t need Jellicent ex. 

In fact, I dare say Frillish is a better item locker than Jelicent ex. Garde decks often likes to use Frillish to keep the item lock going along with Munkidori moving damage to make it really tough for your opponent to set up with all that in mind. If it was a Jellicent, all you need is a gist to play items again, same can’t be said for Frillish.

#14 - Lunatone/Solrock/Fighting Gong - Mega Evolutions (MEG)

Type: Pokémon / Item

Total Points: 75 (18th)

Average Points Scored per Sets: 1.92 (14th)

Points

• S1 - Not Released
• S2 - Not Released
• S3 - Not Released
• S4 - Not Released
• S5 - 52 / Avg - 2.08
• S6 - 23 / Avg - 1.77

Wins: 3

Top 4: 15

Top 8: 27

Saw play in:

• Gholdengo ex/Lunatone
• Ceruledge ex
• Bloodmoon Ursaluna/Lunatone
• Mega Lucario ex/Hariyama
• Raging Bolt ex/Teal Mask Ogerpon ex

The first of two shared entries on this list and there was no reason to separate Lunatone, Solrock and Fighting Gong. Apart from Cynthia's Garchomp, any deck playing one of those cards are likely to play the other two. 

Fighting Gong lets you search for either a Fighting energy or a Fighting Pokemon. And most of the time, if it’s not for the energy, it’s either for Lunatone or Solrock. Lunatone draws you 3 extra cards by discarding a Fighting energy while Solrock was on the board. Solrock does 70 damage if Lunatone was on board. 

So they’re all connected! 3 great cards all working well together, and decks that made the most of these 3 cards were Gholdengo and Ceruledge. And yes Gholdengo has now become one of the top decks of the game because of firstly Genesect and now all 3 cards here. Because of them, Gholdengo can now play other Ace Spec cards and have an alternate attacker in Solrock, sometimes on Turn 1!

#13 - Mega Diancie ex - Phantasmal Flames (PFL)

Type: Basic Pokémon Mega Evolved

Total Points: 46 (25th)

Average Points Scored per Sets: 3.53 (6th)

Points

• S1 - Not Released
• S2 - Not Released
• S3 - Not Released
• S4 - Not Released
• S5 - Not Released
• S6 - 46 / Avg - 3.54

Wins: 4

Top 4: 8

Top 8: 6

Saw play in:

• Gardevoir ex
• Gardevoir ex/Jellicent ex

A Psychic-type attacker that isn't weak to Dark? Yup Mega Diancie might have been the missing piece for Gardevoir ex. One of Gardevoir’s biggest issue was not being able to keep up with some Dark decks (which honestly is not true, it still had so many other counter-play).

Diancie is effectively a 300 HP basic thanks to its ability and with Bravery Charm, it becomes 350 HP! Garland Ray is also a great attack, hitting 240 for just the cost of discarding 2 Psychic. And let’s not forget, Gardevoir is a deck that loves their energies in discard pile. And with Munkidori, Diancie can get some big KOs, even on 300 HP mons.

#12 - Marnie's Grimmsnarl ex - Destined Rivals (DRI)

Type: Stage 2 Pokémon ex

Total Points: 130 (9th)

Average Points Scored per Sets: 1.64 (19th)

Points

• S1 - Not Released
• S2 - Not Released
• S3 - 36 / Avg - 2.77
• S4 - 42 / Avg - 1.23
• S5 - 39 / Avg - 1.56
• S6 - 13 / Avg - 1

Wins: 7

Top 4: 27

Top 8: 33

Saw play in:

• Marnie's Grimmsnarl ex/Froslass
• Marnie's Grimmsnarl ex

It's another good Dark-type attacker in this Gardevoir-dominated year we've seen but Marnie's Grimmsnarl sure sticks out more than the rest. Technically I could have put Spikemuth Gym on here too since it only really works with this deck but I have too many shared entries already on here.

A Stage 2 mon hitting for 180 and 30 to another bench mon, sounds familiar? Yup it’s kinda like the old Darkrai EX that would hit 90 and snipe 30. And with the likes of Munkidori and Froslass, you can keep adding these numbers to either board wipe your opponent or set up enough numbers for a TM Devolution plays.

#11 - Mega Kangaskhan ex - Mega Evolutions (MEG)

Type: Basic Pokémon Mega Evolved

Total Points: 83 (15th)

Average Points Scored per Sets: 2.08 (12th)

Points

• S1 - Not Released
• S2 - Not Released
• S3 - Not Released
• S4 - Not Released
• S5 - 60 / Avg - 2.4
• S6 - 23 / Avg - 1.77

Wins: 5

Top 4: 17

Top 8: 17

Saw play in:

• Mega Box
• Tera Box
• Pidgeot ex Control
• Mega Kangaskhan ex/Bouffalant
• Mega Lopunny ex/Dusknoir

Mega Kangaskhan ex is not just a good draw supporter for many decks, it can also be a tanky attacker too, usually in it's own deck or Mega Box. And with stuff like Latias ex, you can easily draw 2 cards and then retreat into any other attacker. That’s the drawing bit.

The attacking bit? 200 +50 for each heads you flipped until you hit tails, which means it can do 500 damage if you’re really lucky. But even with the first tail flips, 200 is already a lot of damage. 

And it could be 230 thanks to Munkidori. And with cards like Bouffalant, Bravery Charm and Jumbo Ice Cream, it becomes a near untouchable monster to deal with, with effectively 410 HP!

#10 - Brock's Scouting - Journey Together (JTG)

Type: Supporter

Total Points: 203 (6th)

Average Points Scored per Sets: 1.85 (17th)

Points

• S1 - Not Released
• S2 - 57 / Avg - 2.71
• S3 - 35 / Avg - 2.69
• S4 - 88 / Avg - 2.59
• S5 - 14 / Avg - 0.56
• S6 - 9 / Avg - 0.69

Wins: 12

Top 4: 38

Top 8: 53

Saw play in:

• Dragapult ex
• Dragapult ex/Dusknoir
• Gholdengo ex/Joltik Box
• Dragapult ex/Charizard ex
• Flareon ex/Noctowl

Any Supporter card allowing you to search for Pokemon is always worth a look, just like Jacq, Hilda, the previously mentioned Dawn or stuff like Bridgette or Korinna from back then. Brock's Scouting is the latest to join the list, and it gives you the option to search for 2 Basic or 1 Evolution Pokemon.

For decks like Dragapult, it’s great early game to get a Budew or Dreepy down even after Itchy Pollen is in effect, or one Drakloak to get your engine going. For Joltik decks, they tend to go for Latias ex and Miraidon ex which in turn gets Joltik and another lighting attacker to set their whole board up. 

#9 - Yveltal - Mega Evolutions (MEG)

Type: Basic Pokémon 

Total Points: 115 (11th)

Average Points Scored per Sets: 2.71 (9th)

Points

• S1 - Not Released
• S2 - Not Released
• S3 - Not Released
• S4 - Not Released
• S5 - 93 / Avg - 3.72
• S6 - 22 / Avg - 1.69

Wins: 8

Top 4: 23

Top 8: 22

Saw play in:

• Mega Box
• Marnie's Grimmsnarl ex/Froslass
• N's Zoroark ex
• Froslass/Munkidori
• Crustle

Initially Maractus would have made this list but then Yveltal showed up later in the year and it's now the preferred choice for the retreat-lock attack. 

And perhaps the one thing it has over Maractus, apart from the bigger HP amount, is simply Yveltal having free retreat! That works perfectly with Pecharunt ex in mind, giving you a free out for…oddly enough…another retreat lock attack! Or decks that need to retreat to use it’s attack again, this could work with them.

#8 - Ralts/Kirlia - Mega Evolutions (MEG)

Type: Basic Pokémon / Stage 1 Pokémon

Total Points: 114 (12th)

Average Points Scored per Sets: 3.17 (7th)

Points

• S1 - Not Released
• S2 - Not Released
• S3 - Not Released
• S4 - Not Released
• S5 - 66 / Avg - 2.64
• S6 - 48 / Avg - 3.69

Wins: 10

Top 4: 18

Top 8: 21

Saw play in:

• Gardevoir ex
• Gardevoir ex/Jellicent ex

So yeah we got a new Ralts and Kirlia and they're both better than the previous ones we started with at the start of the year. Ralts two attacks are nothing special but you got the choice of either drawing one extra card, or doing 10 damage.

As for Kirlia, it’s also got two good attacks but most of the time, if it’s used, it will be the first attack. Call Sign let’s you search for 3 Pokémon and put it into your hand so you can set up the perfect board the next turn, with one of them surely being Gardevoir ex which is what the deck needs to get going!

#7 - Hilda - White Flare (WHT)

Type: Supporter

Total Points: 165 (7th)

Average Points Scored per Sets: 2.3 (11th)

Points

• S1 - Not Released
• S2 - Not Released
• S3 - Not Released
• S4 - 79 / Avg - 2.32
• S5 - 55 / Avg - 2.2
• S6 - 31 / Avg - 2.38

Wins: 13

Top 4: 28

Top 8: 30

Saw play in:

• Dragapult ex/Dusknoir
• Flareon ex/Noctowl
• Alakazam/Dudunsparce
• Conkeldurr
• Dragapult ex

As mentioned for Brock's Scouting earlier, any Supporter card that searches for Pokemon is usually very good. But Hilda doesn't just do that. While it does search for an Evolution Pokemon, it also search for an Energy card. Not just Basic, any energy card! 

So for decks like Dragapult, it can search out Dragapult ex AND Neo Upper Energy, allowing Pult to attack right away. It also work for decks like Flareon to get the missing energy for Flareon or whoever might be attacking. 

The new Mega Lopunny ex decks is also very reliant on Hilda to get Mega Lopunny or Dusclops/Dusknoir and with Jet Enegy, it can destroy and opponent’s board right away.

#6 - Shaymin - Destined Rivals (DRI)

Type: Basic Pokémon 

Total Points: 222 (5th)

Average Points Scored per Sets: 2.95 (8th)

Points

• S1 - Not Released
• S2 - Not Released
• S3 - 80 / Avg - 6.15
• S4 - 69 / Avg - 2.03
• S5 - 54 / Avg - 2.16
• S6 - 19 / Avg - 1.46

Wins: 14

Top 4: 42

Top 8: 52

Saw play in:

• Marnie's Grimmsnarl ex/Froslass
• Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex
• Dragapult ex/Dusknoir
• Gardevoir ex
• Ethan's Typhlosion

We finally got a bench protector back in the game but with a bit of a catch this time around. Shaymin protects your benched Pokémon from attack, sounds like the old Mew or Manaphy or Mr Mime right? 

Well not quite, it only protects Pokémon without a Rule Box, so your Pokémon ex are not protected. A nice change I’d say and hey Shaymin has saw play in loads of decks. The irony being that the one that used it the most is a deck that attacks the bench too, that being Grimmsnarl. 

And with the likes of Scream Tail, Fezandipiti ex and Wellspring Ogerpon ex still such a big threat in the current meta, Shaymin will continue to be an answer for decks suffering from snipe attacks.

#5 - Psyduck - Promo (PR)

Type: Basic Pokémon 

Total Points: 144 (8th)

Average Points Scored per Sets: 3.66 (5th)

Points

• S1 - Not Released
• S2 - Not Released
• S3 - Not Released
• S4 - Not Released
• S5 - 102 / Avg - 4.08
• S6 - 42 / Avg - 3.23

Wins: 9

Top 4: 33

Top 8: 22

Saw play in:

• Mega Box
• Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex
• Marnie's Grimmsnarl ex/Froslass
• Crustle
• N's Zoroark ex

Probably the hardest card to find on this list, because I myself do not own one of these. Psyduck was released as a 3-pack blister when Mega Evolution so it was tough to find. And it was super playable too with the top deck in mind during that time.

Psyduck shuts down ability that has Pokémon knocking itself out to use the ability and guess who takes the hit from this? Yup Dusclops and Dusknoir, the main thing helping Dragapult ex. Charizard Pidgeot is another one but the irony being it also using Psyduck, some of them habe started cutting Dusknoir as a way to help with the Pult matchup so Psyduck was the answer for them too.

#4 - Lillie's Clefairy ex - Journey Together (JTG)

Type: Basic Pokémon ex

Total Points: 433 (4th)

Average Points Scored per Sets: 4.07 (4th)

Points

• S1 - Not Released
• S2 - 145 / Avg - 6.90
• S3 - 40 / Avg - 3.08
• S4 - 119 / Avg - 3.5
• S5 - 82 / Avg - 3.28
• S6 - 47 / Avg - 3.61

Wins: 30

Top 4: 77

Top 8: 104

Saw play in:

• Gardevoir ex
• Tera Box
• Joltik Box
• Gardevoir ex/Jellicent ex
• Flareon ex/Noctowl

Lillie's Clefairy ex has been a welcomed addition to many decks this year and it's just a generally good card. The ability is already so good, giving your opponent’s Dragon Pokemon, a typing known to have no weakness, now having Psychic weakness when Clefairy on board meant stuff like Gardevoir ex now had an easier way to deal with Dragapult ex. 

But it’s not just the ability, the attack is amazing too. The last time we saw a Rondo attack was with Entei, Suicune and Raikou Vs, all theee of them seeing play at one point or another during their time. You hit for as many Pokemon on both boards and adding Clefairy, if both boards are full, that’s an easy 220. 

And that number can keep going up if Area Zero Underdepths is in play, and with your board full, it goes up to 280 which can knock out many big attackers like N’s Zoroark ex and Ceruledge ex. And if your opponent’s board is full, that means Clefairy does 340, enough to KO even Charizard ex! 

And it’s quite splashable, just needing a Psychic and colourless to attack and there’s plenty of ways around that. Clefairy is here to stay and will always be relevant since Dragapult isn’t going away anytime soon.

#3 - Budew - Prismatic Evolutions (PRE)

Type: Basic Pokémon 

Total Points: 673 (1st)

Average Points Scored per Sets: 5.87 (3rd)

Points

• S1 - 95 / Avg - 7.92
• S2 - 161 / Avg - 7.67
• S3 - 98 / Avg - 7.54
• S4 - 202 / Avg - 5.94
• S5 - 77 / Avg - 3.08
• S6 - 40 / Avg - 3.07

Wins: 46

Top 4: 115

Top 8: 172

Saw play in:

• Dragapult ex/Dusknoir
• Dragapult ex
• Gardevoir ex
• Dragapult ex/Charizard ex
• Marnie's Grimmsnarl ex/Froslass

Yup, Budew. You know it. You either love it or hate it. A 30 HP mon that hit for 10 and item lock for free and has free retreat, how can it not be good? It’s been the perfect partner for decks that like to play the comeback game but building their board and playing the slow game initially, mainly Pult, Garde and Grimm.

It’s the perfect turn 1 attack for most of these decks to stop your opponent from setting up by preventing them from using cards like Poffin, Nest or Ultra Ball and also Rare Candy. Speaking of which, one thing Budew has over Frillish (apart from the energy cost and the retreat cost) is that it is searchable through Buddy-Buddy Poffin, something the 80 HP Frillish is not.

But it’s not just a great early game attack, it’s also a great late game attack to stop your Gholdengo opponent from using Superior Energy Retrieval or other decks from using Prime/Counter Catcher. We will keep seeing Budew until it rotates, we won’t be able to escape it. It’s Itchy Pollen season!

#2 - Air Balloon - Black Bolt (BLK)

Type: Tool

Total Points: 465 (2nd)

Average Points Scored per Sets: 6.12 (2nd)

Points

• S1 - Not Released
• S2 - Not Released
• S3 - Not Released
• S4 - 239 / Avg - 7.03
• S5 - 164 / Avg - 6.56
• S6 - 62 / Avg - 4.77

Wins: 23

Top 4: 96

Top 8: 128

Saw play in:

• Gholdengo ex/Lunatone
• Marnie's Grimmsnarl ex/Froslass
• Gholdengo ex
• Gholdengo ex/Joltik Box
• Tera Box

Air Balloon is back and if not for the next card, might have been the best card released this year! It’s just a great pivot card and many decks have made good use of it. A lot of decks that used to rely on Rescue Board all swapped to Air Balloon since its release. 

Two decks that have made the most of it are Gholdengo ex decks and decks that are reliant of Munkidori, be it Marnie’s Grimmsnarl, Froslass/Budew, Mega Kangaskhan/Bouffalant or even Gardevoir. 

It makes the most sense in Gholdengo as you can make the most use of it’s Coin Bonus ability as it draws an extra card while being in the active and with Air Balloon, you cam draw up to 4 cards which is always a good thing.

#1 - Lillie's Determination - Mega Evolutions (MEG)

Type: Supporter

Total Points: 464 (3rd)

Average Points Scored per Sets: 11.97 (1st)

Points

• S1 - Not Released
• S2 - Not Released
• S3 - Not Released
• S4 - Not Released
• S5 - 318 / Avg - 12.72
• S6 - 146 / Avg - 11.23

Wins: 31

Top 4: 86

Top 8: 106

Saw play in:

• Dragapult ex/Dusknoir
• Gardevoir ex
• Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex
• Mega Box
• Marnie's Grimmsnarl ex/Froslass

Of course it had to be Lillie's Determination and for the first time since I started doing these lists back in 2019, it's not an Item card that tops the list. Well there's a good reason for that, there were no real good item cards released this year. But they did print perhaps one of the best Supporter cards ever in Lillie's Determination.

Shuffle and draw 6 is nothing new to us, we got that in older cards like Professor Oak's New Theory and Cynthia. What makes this better is that if you have not taken a prize card, it becomes 8 cards instead so now there is an incentive to not take prize cards but instead build your board state by seeing more cards in hands, which is why the slower set-up style decks have all used it, especially the 5 mentioned above.

A lot of these decks like to build their board first, sit behind one or two Budews, use Lillie’s for about 2-3 turns to get the perfect set-up and then launch an attack. It’s not bad in the late game too. With Iono you’re limiting yourself to maybe 2-3 cards. Lillie gets you 6 which is sometimes just enough to get you to a winning position. 

That’s all I got for the cards released this year and that’s it for me this year too! I wish you all the best for the upcoming new years in 2026. Thanks for reading and enjoy the new years! 

Singapore Premier Ball League 2026 - Finally made Top Cut with Zard/Pidgeot!

 Our first of two major events of the year here in Singapore just wrapped up a few days ago, the 2025-26 Singapore Premier Ball League. A few changes from last year's event, the main one being that the two finalists would earn their Worlds invite for the 2026 World Championships in San Francisco! The other being that instead of a Top 32 Cut, now it was a Top 128 cut!

For those who don't know, my aim for this season is to try my best to get my 2nd Worlds invite, just because it's in San Francisco, a place I'm quite familiar with. Plus it gives me a good excuse to go visit my cousins so why not! And I've yet to play in an official event in the US and San Fran is probably the easiest place for me to go from here in Singapore so I have to try my best.

The format for this event is a bit weird. While everyone else is playing SVI to MEG, we're playing that plus the cards that came out from the Mega Diancie ex and Mega Gengar ex start decks. So these cards which are coming out in the latest Phantasmal Flames set were legal for play for our last UBL and this PBL, aka this was the PTCGO "ladder format":

• Mega Diancie ex
• Meloetta
• Milcery
• Zacian
• Wondrous Patch
• Mega Gengar ex
• Toxtricty
• Seviper
• Sableye
• Dawn
• Grimsley's Move
• Punk Helmet

The biggest threats are Mega Diancie ex which is an upgrade for Gardevoir ex and because it's weak to Metal typing, it means stuff like Charizard ex, Marnie's Grimmsnarl ex and Mega Absol ex can't just take easy KOs on it. The other big card from this portion is Dawn which I suspected some Dragapult decks and a few Charizard decks would play.

What to Play?

Well I do have a comfort deck in Charizard ex/Pidgeot, something I've played for 2 years now, the issue was that Dragapult ex/Dusknoir is still way too popular here in Singapore, Garde now having Diancie makes the matchup more even and Gholdengo ex is a bit trickier now with the Lunatone/Solrock package. So I tried out 4 different decks for the 4 Ultra Ball Leagues leading up to the Premier Ball League to see which one would work best.

Ultra Ball League #1 S1

Deck: Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex/Dusknoir

Score: 4-4 (80th/278) +5 LP

Ultra Ball League #2 S1

Deck: Joltik Box

Score: 4-3 (56th/224) +6 LP

Ultra Ball League #3 S1

Deck: Gholdengo ex/Lunatone

Score: 6-2 (18th/191) +9 LP

Ultra Ball League #4 S1

Deck: Dragapult ex/Dusknoir

Score: 5-3 (47th/274) +6 LP

After playing all 4 I made notes of what I thought of the decks and if I would consider them for the PBL:

Charizard/Pidgeot

+ Well it's my comfort deck,

+ And people always say playing the deck you know the best is better than playing the best deck most of the time

- Most of my losses were out of my control (Bad prizing vs both Grimm and Garde, first Grimm I had a chance to win but my Iono got him Boss, and Pult was last round)

- Still some really bad matchups to consider, especially since Singaporeans love playing Pult

Joltik Box

+ Good into a lot of the expected meta

- Problem is they can still play around the deck since the gameplan is quite linear

Gholdengo

+ Seems like the best deck to counter the top two (Pult and Garde)

- Just still not as familiar with the deck as I'd like to be

Dragapult

+ Can outplay any deck

- But I felt like I kept misplaying with the deck, not playing it optimally since, like Gholdengo, I'm not as familiar with it as I am with Zard

Statistically, it seemed like Gholdengo was the best play for the event, but my heart still wanted to play Charizard/Pidgeot (with Dusknoir). So I went to my excel spreadsheet to figure out some numbers and this is what came out of it:

1. Alakazam (what the heck are you doing here?)
2. Gholdengo
3. Ceruledge
4. Charizard/Pidgeot
5. Raging Bolt/Teal Mask Ogerpon

First of all, Alakazam numbers has to be fake, how is it the top when it hard loses to the two top decks Pult and Garde? Big nope from me. I don't have Ceruledge and never liked playing Raging Bolt so it was back to the two I was pondering on for the past month or so, Gholdengo or Charizard.

I did have a few other options, one being a 4-Dawn Charizard/Noctowl list that Oscar Madsen had been working on. It was high up on my list at one point after testing the deck so I was rushing to find myself 4 Dawns to play for the event but I never did get any Dawns before the PBL so I had to give up on the idea.

But then my brother made a really interesting point. "Isn't this the last time you can play Charizard ex in a major event?". And he's right. Because my next planned major event is Melbourne Regional, which is in May, which is AFTER rotation hits so this is my last chance to play Charizard ex/Pidgeot and my hope was to finally get a Limitless entry page with my favourite deck! I've got five on there, just not one with Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex so far so this was my last shot at fixing that.

The List - Crafted by Stats

So Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex it is. But what's the 60? Well I could easily just copy paste one of the top performing Zard lists and run with it, but it's me we're talking about and I like to see numbers and stats on what cards are doing well and what numbers of certain cards I should be running. So this is what I did on my excel spreadsheet, to find the most optimal Charizard/Pidgeot/Dusknoir list:

Anything with a star on it is what I ended up going with. Most of them are just because the choices of the two/three cards have seen more success in Zard lists apart from the Charmeleon split

• Charmeleon
• Was going for the 2 100 HP but the last second switch in my list was to go with the 1-1 split thinking there might be a couple of TM Devo decks. Never did run into any of them so this split didn't matter
• Other Energy
• Went with Mist for pretty much the same reason as above, an out vs TM Devo, Clutch plays and Munkidori confusion plays
• Pidgey
• Also went with the 1-1 split, didn't want two 50 HP birds because of the Dusclops threat
• Pidgeotto
• 90 HP since it can survive a hit from Solrock with Vit Band
• Alternate Attacker
• Chi-Yu felt the best choice with Gholdengo's growing presence in the meta
• Shaymin
• Definitely needed it with Gardevoir likely the most played deck and good into Raging Bolt and Tera Box too
• It took the tech spot in my deck, my other consideration was Budew, especially for mirror
• ACE Spec
• I'm still a fan of Max Belt, especially now that Mega Diancie is in the meta and it makes it KOing that much easier as it'll likely have 350 HP
• And with that choice, it gave me a 2nd slot in the deck for a tech choice or a consistency booster -> the 4th Ultra Ball which for me is a must anyway
• Gust Option
• I was initially going with a 3 Boss 1 Counter Catcher split but after talking to my friend Luke Morsa, we figured that would only be good against Gardevoir, so went back to the 2-2 split and I'm kinda glad I did as Catcher saved me a lot of times during the event
• 2nd Stadium
• Town Store as an extra out to get TM Evolution if Arven is not a choice I can use, and also for late game Max Belt and just generally an extra stadium bump

And thus the 60 I played:

Also just for fun, I'd like to point out my card art choices because that's a fun one to talk about!

And if you're wondering, yes I played a full art Briar and the secret art Dusknoir just for prize checking purposes, because some of my games will come down to needed a combination featuring those two cards. As for Pidgeotto, that's my #1 priority when it comes to using TM evolution so the green background really stands out. Pidgeot? I've always used that one.

The only yellow bordered cards in my decks are my two gusting options (Boss and Counter Catcher) along with Ultra Ball and Rare Candy, the pieces I need to get Pidgeot and Charizard up, so they're the most important stuff I need to look through when I'm doing my deck searches. Everything else is just normal.

Premier Ball League 2025-26

Now onto the event!

R1 W vs Ronjo

I went: 1st

Deck: Gholdengo ex/Energy Search Pro

Their final Score: 0-3 Drop (563rd)

He had a super slow start, just a Fezandipit in the active and a Togepi on the bench while I had set a Duskull and Charmander down. I already had Charizard, Arven and Dusclops in hand so it was game. Pop the Dusclops on Togepi, he takes a prize, I find Rare Candy for Zard, and do 210 on Fez, game is over within 3 minutes.

I will say however, this dude weirded me out. When I shuffled his deck, he told me "please don't shuffle my deck that way, it's disrespectful". Brother, if you choose to go to an OFFICIAL event and play your blinged arse cards in them, I will shuffle them however I want, I don't give a shit if your cards cost $5 or or $5000, they're still cards meant to be played at the end of the day. So that did annoy me asking me not to shuffle, especially calling it disrespectful. That's a first!

R2 W vs David Lim

I went: 2nd

Deck: Dragapult ex/Charizard ex

Their final Score: 1-2 Drop (379th)

Nice fella! He told me he had to leave later on to go on a holiday trip to Malaysia so he would give me the win which is nice. I still wanted to play to practice at least, and it was an interesting game. I was not expecting to see Pult Zard even though it was a last minute consideration for myself too haha. 

He got KOs early on with Pult and a late game Iono + Max Belt got me back into the game and the late hand disruption bought me enough time to close the game out while he couldn't set up a 2nd attacker quick enough.

2-0, good start so far!

R3 W vs Koh Jun Yong 

I went: 1st

Deck: Marnie's Grimmsnarl ex

Their final Score: 5-2 (67th)

Grimm is typically a very bad matchup for Zard but from the way he played, I could tell he was a newer player and didn't know the matchup that well so I did my usual, target down his Froslass and for some reason he never went to build a 2nd one up. He went quite aggressive with Grimmsnarl so Max Belt ended up getting me the last 4 prizes on two of his Grimms.

3-0 start. I was feeling good, I didn't expect to have a good run with how my testing games had gone the week leading up to the event, I was losing more games than I was winning so this was the confidence booster I needed. And then R4 happens.

R4 L vs Sebastian Fok

I went: 2nd

Deck: Gardevoir ex/Flutter Mane

Their final Score: 6-1 (20th)

First friendly fire of the day, and I knew Seb was likely to play Garde and my suspicions were true when he flipped over Ralts. I went 2nd, did my first deck search to get Arven and TM Evo to get my Pidgeotto set up....and it's prized. But wait...

...where are my Charizards???? They were both prized! And I saw a Super Rod prized too which is something I really needed in this matchup. I got a good chuckle out of this but I was dying inside, how am I supposed to be a Gardevoir deck without my main attacker? So I decided, I guess I'm now a Pidgeot deck that will just keep spamming Dusknoir. The problem is, as mentioned, one Super Rod is prized.

This was a long game as expected, I mean Garde is a slow deck but due to how I had to play, I was forced to take it slow too and build up my board. The first prize I took from my Dusk Bomb was Pidgeotto to help me set up two Pidgeots (the first one will go down anyway since it's attacking). 

I got my first Zard as my 3rd prize, from a Dusknoir bomb (I had to use my only Rod to get it) and started to make a bit of a comeback but it was a little too late, he had his board set up to take 3 prizes. I'm still happy with how I played that game, somehow almost winning it with no Zards around until my 3rd prize was taken.

3-1, still in it.

R5 L vs Craig Ong

I went: 1st

Deck: Dragapul ex/Dusknoir

Their final Score: 4-3 (134th)

I knew Craig was on Dragapult Dusknoir as I had sat next to him in an earlier round so of course I was a bit worried, it is THAT matchup. There was quite a lengty delay due to a wrongly submitted score, about 20 minutes. I went first, I got a Buddy-Buddy Poffin to get my stuff set up, and hopefully not prize anything silly, check my deck and errr....

....where are my Charmeleons??? They were both prized! Again? The one match I can't use Rare Candy in because they'll attack with Budew, I need TM Evo to get into my Charmeleons and I can't do that when they're both prized! But it gets worse, I noticed my 3rd Charmander is prized too. Typically in this matchup I want all 3 Charmanders on board, as they tend to do the usual board wipe and might go 2-3 prizes up, so if I can get my Charizard up after that, I should be in a good spot.

But guess what? Even with all of that, I still managed to put myself in a decent spot in this match, Pidgeot being my MVP for the 2nd game in a row taking out some big KOs. But not seeing a Charmeleon or being able to set up a Charmander at any point of the game just killed me off. I did get to within 2 prizes left to win that game somehow! So I was happy again with how I played despite all the rubbish prizing, found my route to win and sure it wasn't enough but I had to give it a try right?

3-2, which is a dangerous spot to be in with 2 rounds left to go. Like last year, anyone with an x-3 score is dropped from the event and I've not dropped from an official event in ages, maybe 2018 was the last time? I didn't want this to be the first one. And yes even when I start 0-3 in GBLs, I will still play it out because it's not easy to get into these events anymore so to me, it's a privilege to be able to play in these events so why ever drop. 

R6 W vs Justin Pang

I went: 2nd

Deck: Raging Bolt ex/Teal Mask Ogerpon ex

Their final Score: 3-3 Drop (230th)

I can't lie, I breathe a sigh of relief when he flipped over Raging Bolt ex as his starter, I knew this matchup very well. And it went as I expected. I set up a Zard and a Chi Yu to bait him into attack Zard which he did and Chi-Yu just cleaned house and took 4 prizes for me with my 2nd Zard taking the last 2 prizes.

4-2, the match is now the win and in to make Top 128 cut.

R7 W vs Bryan Wong

I went: 1st

Deck: Blissey ex/Centiskorch

Their final Score: 4-3 (192nd)

And of course it's a friendly fire in the most important round of the day. Bryan is a homie but I had no idea what he was playing. I was a bit worried because I knew he had been doing well with Yanmega ex which is not my best matchup. He told me his deck had a horrible matchup to Zard and flips over Sizzlipede (OMG CENTISKORCH WOOHOO) and yes, I figured out it was Blissey it does have a bad Zard matchup. The problem is...

...I started Fezandipiti ex. That's the only thing in my hand going first. I have no Turo in this list. Blissey does 180 and since he was playing Centiskroch, he can easily get damage on his Munki to move damage and KO the Fez so he has a free two prizer on board. This was a scary matchup to leave Duskulls or Pidgeys on board because they were easy targets too.

It turned out to be a long grindy game and we went to time. Bryan had the outs to win but sadly messed up, he had KOed something and tried to Counter Catcher but we were equal on prizes, then forgot Mega Absol's first attack says the active needs to have 60 damage counter to KO it, my Charizard had 90. Then he forgot that Absol's second attack needed two Dark energy, not one. It was painful to watch because I've been in that spot where I'm nervous and making mistakes I shouldn't be doing so I tried to comfort him after the game because it's happened to me before. Don't want to see that happen to a friend too. I tried to lift his spirits up after the game, like I said he's a homie after all.

5-2 and I made Top 128 cut as the 59th seed! Initially it said I was 58th and I asked around to know what my Top 128 opponent was playing, and I heard it was Garde Jelli which sure can be painful but I know if I can set up, I should be able to win. Then the order got switched around a bit and now I'm 59th seed and asking around, I found out my opponent was playing Zard Pidgeot.

Oh great a mirror match, just what I needed. Especially with how my Top 32 game went at the Master Ball League last season, that was also a mirror match (Pult Zard) and i dead drew both times.

Top 128 L vs Eng Thia Kang

I went: 2nd

Deck: Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex

Their final Score: 6-3 (Lost in Top 64 to Jeremy Leong)

And it happened again. I had the slower start despite going 2nd. My opponent only had a Pidgey and Charmander on board and I was hopeful for the best even though my start wasn't the greatest. He got a Pidgeot ex up and a Charizard ex up Turn 2. I wasn't that worried because I know in the mirror match, I'm not supposed to attack first so I didn't mind him doing all of this because that meant I could get the first hit on his Charizard ex, good for my prize trade.

But things just got weirder from there. I was not drawing into stuff I needed to set up the perfect board state. I even had to boss a Duskull to prevent him from getting a 4-prize turn which would kill me off. And since he used a Dusknoir to KO one of my Charmeleons first, I was down to 4 prizes and he's got a damaged Charizard still on board. I went to search through his discard to see what he might need and noticed he played 7 Fire energy which was really weird, which Zard list does that? 

My biggest issue is that I still didn't have the perfect combination of cards to pull off the 4-prize turn combo for game. The biggest issue being that my Fezandipiti was still prized so I couldn't draw extra cards so I had only Pidgeot to help me get one card per turn. Normally I'd want the Fez in there so I could have more options and hopefully draw into stuff like Super Rod and Poffin to set my Charmanders up to become Zards later on. But all that was impossible when all I could rely on was Fez.

There was a turn where I think I misplayed a bit, I had Briar in hand but nothing else was helpful to help me set up my board so I went for Lillie to draw more stuff out, but I had almost the same hand but no Briar so now I gave myself even more work to do to pull off the 4-prize turn.

So it came down to the last turn of the game. He took out my Zard, my board is Pidgeot ex, Charmander, Tatsugiri, Dusclops and a Pidgeotto (I was half expecting him to go after my first Pidgeot with his super fast start so I had to set the second one up just in case while he only had one bird and I never got to punish him for doing that). On his board there are two easy targets for me to gust up, and his Charizard had 240 damage on it, which means Dusknoir KOs it. 

But I had a really tough choice to make with my draws in hand. All I had was Iono, Lillie, Candy and some rubbish cards. Do I Lillie and try to draw into any combination of Candy, Zard, Catcher and Dusknoir and leave Pidgeot to get me the last part? Do I play it safe and just get my Zard up, Iono him, hit the active and force him to set up the Zard. At this point I still didn't know what Ace SPEC he was playing too. The problem with the Iono play was, because he had Pidgeot AND Fez, he can easily set up a Zard and get Boss to KO as he hadn't even used one yet.

Play it safe, or take the risk? My whole tournament run was on the line from this one decision.

I decided to take the risk but also using my Pidgeot first to set up my Zard to gurantee a KO and thin my deck out in the hopes I would draw into any outs to a Dusknoir and one of my two Counter Catchers. So I used Lillie and prayed.

I got the Counter Catcher but no outs to a Dusknoir. Now I was feeling defeated because even if I hit into the Zard, his hand size was way too big to easily set up a Zard and get Boss to KO me. So now I had another decision, KO the Zard and try to make him have all the answers to KO my Zard back (or anything on the bench) or KO the Pidgeot to make sure he doesn't have the exact answer he needs to KO back. 

This is where I misplayed and went for Pidgeot. I should have gone for the Zard and make him have the response back. The problem was, I had already seen him use Super Rod, so he'll have Fire energies and a Zard. No Boss used so I have easy targets for him. And sure enough he shows me a Town Store to get Max Belt.

Lost in Top 128. That hurts. Like I mentioned previously, my whole target this year was to get my Worlds invite to go to San Francisco so to lose in the first round just destroyed me. A went and hid somewhere just to reflect on what happened. Did I make the right call to go with Lillie? Should I have gone for Iono? Should I have used an earlier Lillie in the hopes to draw more useful cards? Should I have KOed his Zard and not the Pidgeot? 

Still a long season to go so I will need to be better for the 2nd and 3rd part of this season, I cannot keep making silly mistakes that will end up screwing me over. And since I didn't make it to Top 64, I sadly did not get the PBL playmat and it looked really nice. It did annoy me when one guy kept asking me if I wanted to touch it. I do touch stuff I didn't earn.

But hey on the positive, I finally got my first top cut finish with Charizard/Pidgeot after two years of playing and I was doubly excited because finally I'll have my favourite deck featured on my Limitless page. Woohoo!

What's Next?

Well what is next? We have a new set coming out soon in Phantasmal Flames, but I don't think it really changes the meta all that much. Garde, Pult and Gholdengo are still going to be up there. I still have high hopes for Charizard especially now that we have Battle Cage to deal with the spread peeps. Mega Lopunny ex is easily the best new attacker in the game, it can be in pretty much any deck because of it's tying and two amazing attacks.

I can't wait to play in the new format. The problem is....we don't know when our next events are. No dates have been announced for our next Great Ball League or Ultra Ball League. From what I heard it might be mid-December which is not good for me, because that might mean I have to miss more GBLs and I already missed a lot in Season 1.

As for the future, well I have played my last major event with Charizard ex so I was hoping to give it a good sendoff but alas was not to be. My next major is likely to be Melbourne Regional, my one TPCi event of the year, and bo3 so actual fun games to be played. But post rotation so I need to find a new deck to play too. But I did play Dragapult Dusknoir and made Day 2 last year. 

Whatever the case is, I hope I can repeat that run. As for the season, aim is still to be at least top 8 in the standings to get the invite, currently I'm like mid-20s area. More work to be done to achieve the goal. Also congrats to my homies Yu Xian and Jeremy for their finals placing in the PBL, two great players and two former Worlds competitors so it makes me happy to see the best getting the top results. Thanks for reading!

Play Limitless - 5 Years On

 On this date, 5 years ago, Play Limitless was launched and a small test tournament was set up to test out features on the site. Little did we know that we were helping to test what would turn out to be the biggest thing to happen for those of us playing Pokémon TCG in online tournaments during the pandemic, which is when in person play was suspended, and for the Pokémon TCG game overall. 

2020. A year not many will look back on fondly as it was the year the Covid pandemic hit and shut the world down, be it work, school, sports or even games. For those of us playing Pokemon TCG, the circuit was cancelled. In memories serves me correctly, the 2020 Toronto Regional was cancelled just days before it happened due to the pandemic, with Perth Regional, Guatemala SPE and Santiago SPE being the last IRL events to happen before the shutdown.

All in-person events were cancelled so for those of us who enjoyed playing the game, well what to do we now? The simple solution was playing online. I was used to it as I had played online events for a few years at that point, mainly the Pokebeach Monthly PTCGO Tournaments. You would be paired with an opponent and given 3-4 days to complete a bo3 series. But it wasn't an on-demand PTCGO event. 

That would soon change with the first Limitless Online Series Qualifier in April ran by the Limitless team and Robin Schulz. This live online event looked to mimic the feel of playing in an IRL event, where you'd play an opponent and say after 30 minutes time, you'd play another round against another opponent and so-on until top cut or the final swiss round. 

The qualifier events were initially a success, the first seeing 900+ players and the next two crossing the 1,000+ player mark. However the biggest issue came from the hosting site, start.gg (initially smash.gg). The hosting site was struggling to deal with the increased numbers of player, especially for the later events. Although the event was a huge success, Robin and the limitless team had plans to do a Limitless Online Series event. But with start.gg having it's issues and questions on whether other online platforms at that time (mostly Battlefy hosting events from the likes of Hegster, PokeX) could host a bigger amount of players, where could the team host such events? Thus the idea of Play Limitless!

"The idea for building the site came up when running the original Limitless Online Series at the beginning of 2020. We used start.gg for tournament operations, but it quickly became obvious that the site just wasn't ideal for our use case. 

We thankfully got help from rk9 for decklist submission, but since the pairings had to be external, there was no way for us to automatically remove people who didn't submit a decklist. We had to close decklist submission an hour or so early, go through the list, and drop people manually. Support for Swiss was also weak, for example records didn't carry over by phase, so we had to add up day 1 and 2 manually in Google Sheets before top cut. 

Overall, there were just a lot of tasks that felt way more difficult than they should be. We knew that if we were ever to run online tournaments again, we'd need a different system.

Since there were no official tournaments at the time, my motivation to work on the regular Limitless website wasn't very high, so I decided to try to solve the problems we ran into myself and started this new project. The initial goal was to create a Swiss-centered pairing system with integrated decklist submission, and it worked out quite well!" - Robin Schulz

And thus on September 2020, Play Limitless went live. But before the first Limitlss Online Series Weekly event could go live, the team held two test events to see how the new hosting site would work, be the checking-in, submitting of scores and pairings. I was one of the lucky few to play in the first test event, and I knew right away, Play Limitless was far superior to any other online hosting site being used, and that was only their first attempt! 

The best part for me was, not just that it was open decklist but we'd have a link to click that would open up your opponent's decklist in a picture form which was far better than many other sites, where you'd have to copy the list and post it on the Limitless tool. It's all done for you here by Limitless themselves which I thought was perfect! Funny little sidenote, but I did somehow actually win that first test event, but sadly it's not on record on the site anymore.

From there on, the first Limitless Online Series Weekly event would go live on the 3rd of October, almost 5 years ago! It was a free-to-enter league cp style tournament, which PTCGO codes given out as prizes. Edward Valencia (USA), a good friend of mine, would end up taking the win with Centiskorch VMAX, beating Henrique Jorge's (BRA) Blacephlaon deck. 165 players would enter the event which was quite a big number comapred to other online events on-going at that time.

It wouldn't be long before the first online event on Play Limitless would cross 200 players, that being the Atlas Collectables Sunday Open event with 210 players, won by JJTcg (ITA) with Pikachu & Zekrom-GX. And before the year ended, we crossed 300 players, Mike Fouchet (USA), again with PikaRom, winning the GGtoor Chill TCG Cup #1 event, with 383 players! 

As more players got word about Play Limitless and with IRL events still postponed, more players would join in on the fun of these online tournaments, with events happening on a daily basis! And it didn't take long for the numbers to continue growing. 

• 400+ Players: Jan 30 2021 - Limitless Online Series Major #1 won by Edwyn Mesman (NED) with Centiskroch VMAX - 490 players!
• 500+ Players: Apr 10 2021 - Limitless Online Series Major #3 won by keropon (JAP) with Mad Party Box - 528 players!
• 600+ Players: Jun 10 2021 - Chill Series #34 won by Stéphane Ivanoff (FRA) with Mewtwo & Mew-GX/Rillaboom - 750 players!
• 800+ Players: Aug 5 2021 - Chill Series #41 won by DiamondKing (TWN) with Shadow Rider Calyrex VMAX - 842 players!

Yup, 842 players in one online event on the 5th of August 2021, 10 months after the launch of Play Limitless. Sure these numbers wouldn't be seen on the regular but events would hit 200+ players more often that people might think. And the number of big events being hosted on Play Limitless have been growing lately. To show that:

• 2020 - 11 200+ Player Events Hosted (obviously a small number)
• 2021 - 86 200+ Player Events Hosted (first full year)
• 2022 - 71 200+ Player Events Hosted (IRL events returns this year)
• 2023 - 58 200+ Player Events Hosted (first full year with IRL events back)
• 2024 - 112 200+ Player Events Hosted (big increase in big events from 2021)
• 2025 - 141 200+ Player Events Hosted (biggest number so far with 3 months still to go)

Side note, if you were interested to see results from these events, I've made an excel sheet for all of the PTCGO/PTCGL online events on Play Limitless that had 200 players or more in it here!

The numbers have been increasing since 2024, and many more online series are starting to see consistently big numbers, compared to 2022-2023 when it was only one online series that would hit these 200+ player cap. Nowadays there's easily 5 or more events hitting 200+ on a regular basis. Players, be it casual or competitive are still using Play Limitless to practice for big events or just wanting the feeling of playing in a big events and just this year, we finally saw the first event to hit the 1,000+ player mark with The Smart Series back in July hitting 1539 players!

"I did not expect the platform to become as big, in fact initially it was only intended for our own use and didn't even have a proper admin panel. However I'm very happy how it evolved over time. I wasn't sure whether online tournaments would slowly fizzle out after the return of official tournaments, but was pleasantly surprised that the scene kept going and is probably as strong as ever today!" - Robin

As the site continue to grows, it's not just the Pokémon TCG players who are enjoying their game being hosted on Play Limitless. Eventually more games would start to get included, including Pokémon VGC, Pokémon GO and games not named Pokémon too (Digimon, One Piece and Lorcana to name a few), and not just online but some host IRL tournaments on Play Limitless as well! And just announced recently, Riftbound and League of Legends TCG will be supported on the site soon.

• Pokémon VGC 
• First event on Jan 20th 2022
• Most Players in an event during 2025: 285
• One Piece Card Game
• First event on March 24th 2023
• Most Players in an event during 2025: 1008
• Digimon Card Game
• First event on August 5th 2021
• Most Players in an event during 2025: 131
• DBS: Fusion World
• First event on February 24th 2024
• Most Players in an event during 2025: 153
• DBS: Masters
• First event on May 14th 2023
• Most Players in an event during 2025: 66
• Battle Spirits Saga
• First event on May 20th 2023
• Most Players in an event during 2025: no events
• Gundam Card Game
• First event on April 10th 2025
• Most Players in an event during 2025: 64
• Disney Lorcana
• First event on October 2nd 2023
• Most Players in an event during 2025: 287
• Star Wars: Unlimited
• First event on March 21th 2024
• Most Players in an event during 2025: 115
• Pokémon TCG Pocket
• First event on October 24th 2024
• Most Players in an event during 2025: 2829
• Pokémon GO
• First event on October 22nd 2024
• Most Players in an event during 2025: 5

With all these games now supported, things can get a bit challenging for the Play Limitless team, especially seeing the numbers Pokémon TCG Pocket have been pulling, with 22 events that have had more than 1000+ players!

"The biggest challenge was probably the addition of Pocket about a year ago. The game suddenly brought a lot of new people to the site and created some wild tournament attendance numbers that the site wasn't originally made to handle. But that's not a bad problem to have!

Also more generally speaking, ever since starting the tournament platform, it became more difficult to prioritize what to work on. Before that, when I wanted to work on Limitless, it was very straightforward, while now there's several projects I need to balance. It's still fun but definitely more challenging." - Robin

Not only has the game of Pokemon TCG grown bigger, but Play Limitless has grown quite big as well, with some card games using the platform to host IRL regional events! There have been talks about needing to input results online for Pokemon TCG and while that is currently only in Asia, could we see it elsewhere around the world and with Play Limitless? 

Whatever the future is, Play Limitless will continue to be a great source for players getting ready for events in the future. Some may not pay much attention to online events that much these days but it still can impact how the meta might shift, the prime example being the emergence of Regidrago VSTAR for Worlds last year. Granted it got a top 16 finish at NAIC but soon more players started to play it in online tournaments. And it won. And it won some more to the point everyone took notice and knew it would be a major player going into Worlds, along with a few new cards added from the Shrouded Fable set.

"Most importantly, I think it would be cool if online tournaments keep being a relevant part of the competitive community, and I'll do my best to maintain the site's position as the best place to host them and play in them. I do have some ideas on additional features it could provide, but it's not a main priority right now compared to the other newer projects like labs or the deck builder. TPCi already has a great partner in RK9 so I don't have any ambitions to ever be involved with official tournaments." - Robin

5 years later and Play Limitless is still a great resource for players to use, be it to play in these events to practice for their upcoming IRL events, or just to see what decks are doing well and try them out themselves. I myself use it often, as some might know, I do enjoy playing in these online events and I use it as practice for the real thing. Then again it's hard to get into events here so it's nice to just play and try to imagine how it would go for the real thing. 

I also use it to look at not just decks but data too. Seeing which decks are the most played in some of these bigger online events to figure out a potential metagame and also, the one I use it for the most, see the matchup data for these decks. I know, it's not the best one to see as some of these players might not be the best pilots for these decks but it's still better than having no resources so I'll take it. 

I'm glad that Robin and the Limitless team gave us this platform and I hope it continues to thrive for the next 5 years! So if you’re ever wanting to play Pokemon TCG from the comfort of your own home, you can always jump on to Play Limitless, there is bound to be an event on any given day. If you’re from North/South America and Europe, you’ll get the most options. And if you’re from Australia or Asia like myself, unfortunately there aren’t many events happening in timezones for our regions. Still, I do find myself getting up early or staying up late just to play because I do like playing the game! And with Play Limitless, it makes things so much easier.

Just wanted to give special thanks to Robin Schulz for answering some of my questions for this piece!

But where's the stats bit you ask? Don't worry, I got you covered! (Results are as of October 31st 2025)

Ever wondered which decks have won the most of these online events? I've gone through 479 online events to look through and this is what we've got for the most winningest decks (on a side note, the results will likely be more favoured to decks played recently as there have been way more events in the last 2 years on Play Limitless), and to keep it short, it's the top 20 winningest decks: 

1. Gardevoir ex - 36 Wins
2. Lugia VSTAR/Archeops - 26 Wins
3. Mew VMAX/Genesect V - 25 Wins
4. Dragapult ex/Dusknoir - 21 Wins
5. Lost Zone Box (Radiant Greninja) - 20 Wins
6. Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex - 18 Wins
7. Pidgeot ex Control - 18 Wins
8. Pikachu & Zekrom-GX - 15 Wins
9. Dragapult ex - 14 Wins
10. Raging Bolt ex/Teal Mask Ogerpon ex - 14 Wins
11. Giratina VSTAR (Lost Zone) - 13 Wins
12. Marnie's Grimmsnarl ex/Froslass - 12 Wins
13. Lost Zone Box (Radiant Charizard) - 11 Wins
14. Shadow Rider Calyrex VMAX - 11 Wins
15. Snorlax Stall - 10 Wins
16. Miraidon ex - 9 Wins
17. Regidrago VSTAR - 9 Wins
18. Origin Forme Palkia VSTAR/Inteleon - 8 Wins
19. Eternatus VMAX - 7 Wins
20. Centiskorch VMAX - 6 Wins

As for players you might ask, it's a bit more difficult as most of these players are playing under nicknames so it's very difficult to know the true answer but I tried my best and got something to work with. As there are so many players who have won these events, I tried to limit to those that have won at least 3 200+ online events on Play Limitless:

1. Alloutblitzle - 12 Wins
2. Gabriel Fernandez - 7 Wins
3. kasazizooka - 6 Wins
4. Joe Maressa - 5 Wins
5. David Hendrickson - 4 Wins
6. Evan Campbell - 4 Wins
7. KingHeracross - 4 Wins
8. Supercellcambo - 4 Wins
9. Adam Kalamat - 3 Wins
10. Aleksander Rutowicz - 3 Wins
11. Andrew Hedrick - 3 Wins
12. Angel Aranibar - 3 Wins
13. Augusto Beringuer - 3 Wins
14. Bart Musser - 3 Wins
15. Chalo Zamorano - 3 Wins
16. kappadocards - 3 Wins
17. Kashvinder Singh Mann - 3 Wins
18. Nathan Osterkatz - 3 Wins
19. TRTs101 - 3 Wins
20. Unowngamert - 3 Wins
21. wadedaze - 3 Wins

I don't think it's fully acurate but that's the best I can come up with. Thanks for reading!