Singapore 2025-2026 Season Recap + MBL 2026 Recap - Got my 2nd Worlds Invite!

So I meant to do a re-cap of Season 3 and the Master Ball League separately but I've just been so busy with other stuff, I never had time to do it so why not combine the two into one big post together? So here's my re-cap of not just season 3 but the entire 2025-26 season, including a short re-cap on how Seasons 1 and 2 also went and of course the main event, the Master Ball League where I didn't do as well as I hoped but with other results going my way, I've earned my second Pokemon TCG World Championships invite, and it'll be my first Worlds in the USA as well, my first official event in the USA to add to that!

SEASON 1

I called my shot 2 years ago

As I've been saying for the past year or so, the plan was also to push for my Worlds invite in 2026, not 2025 because I didn't really care to go to Anaheim, or Hawai'i before that. I really wanted to go to San Francisco instead. And the last time I said that, I did make it in for Yokohama in 2023!

For the first season in the 2025-26 season, we had just 24 Great Ball Leagues to go along with the 4 Ultra Ball Leagues, which is an upgrade from last season as it used to be just 3 Ultra Ball events. The trade off? There are less points on offer to score in these Ultra Ball Leagues.

So now with the new points payout, I started working out on how to get my Worlds invite, and what is the likely points threshold to get there. The early signs from my calculations were about 210 LP, which would mean that if I could win 7 Great Ball League (7 x 30 LP = 210 LP), I might be quite safe to get my Worlds invite so that was my plan for the season, go for 7 wins! Which is quite a tall task for someone like me as I had only gotten 1 Great Ball League win all of last season. But then again, I wasn't really pushing for the invite last season, much different story this time.

I actually didn't get to play much for season 1 as you might notice the big gap between GBL 7 and GBL 20, I went to Japan for 2 weeks for holiday and before that, I only managed to get into 2 GBLs so I had to pretty much write off this first season and hope I can do well in the UBLs.

I did manage to get my first GBL win in the last day of the GBL period at Brick's Play with Dragapult ex/Dusknoir, it was a meta call choice that worked perfectly for me as I played against two Zards in Rounds 4 and 5! I played four different decks for UBL, trying to find which deck would be the perfect choice for the Premier Ball League. Ended up going with my comfort choice of Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex, and I did make Day 2 before losing straight away in Top 128 Cut, I did write about it here.

SEASON 2

On to Season 2 and I also did write about the entire season here. Long story short, I had a Dawn Zard deck ready for PBL, never played it, waited for the new season to play it, learnt from Oscar Madsen who helped me a lot with the deck and got 3 GBL wins in one week with it that re-started my hopes to make it to Worlds! And I got my best UBL result with it, 7-1 to finish 10th, still no Top 8 though.

And yes, except for one event where I was already tired, I pretty much played only Dawn Zard for Season 2.

SEASON 3

And now onto this latest season, and while Season 2 put me into the picture for the Worlds invite, Season 3 pretty much got me that Worlds invite, and once again, it was really only because of my results in the Great Ball Leagues.

I started off playing Dawn Zard but with how the meta was shaping up, it wasn't the best choice anymore so I went back to the traditional Zard Pidgeot and got T4 at Rowell. I did then end up playing some meta call decks, Gholdengo for a T4 finish at Brints and Raging Bolt with Joltik to almost a T4 finish. 

Then came the crazy day on March 8th. I got declined for all 3 events, and at this point, I had been declined for pretty much every event in March and I need to play in these events to get my last 3 GBL wins. So I got declined at KouritenSG at Chinatown, took the 30 minute train ride to Tai Seng to go to Deckard, got declined there as well and then I had to make this crazy bus ride all the way to Chua Chu Kang, all the way in the West! And I only had 1 hour to make it before registration for walk-ins were closed. I had to rush and ran after two busses to get there, dashing across traffic twice, and made it to ManaPro with 5 minutes to spare! And sure enough, I somehow won that event, with Charizard Pidgeot too, the one with 3 Battle Cages in it!

But the pivotal moment that I think got me my Worlds invite was the final weekend of the GBL events, on March 27th, 28th and 29th. I managed to walk in for Inferno Gaming, taking the risk of going to a smaller event over the bigger event where I might not even get to walk in for hopefully an easier chance to win the event. I did get in and got 2nd with Pult Dusk, losing to Crustle because of some awful prizes but +15 is still something good for me! 

For March 28th, once again I went to the smaller event to give myself the best shot of winning, but only because that's the one I was elected in, still played Pult Dusk and I won that event, getting my 6th GBL win of the season. One more to go and I had two shots at getting that on the last day. And as it was, I did get the last win, on my last event playing my favourite deck of all time, Charizard ex, this time with Dawn, beating an interesting Mega Abosl/Teal Mask Ogerpon deck in Round 5 to get my 7th GBL win, putting me up to 225 points, well past the target of 210 I had set for myself so I was pretty happy to not just reach my target but also hit my goal of 7 GBL wins of the season.

And why did I focus on scoring well at Great Ball Leagues over Ultra Ball Leagues? Lesser rounds for half the points seems much better to me and I seem to have some really torrid luck for these UBLs, I still haven't gotten a Top 8 finish in them.

For the UBLs, the first three I played a Raging Bolt list that wasn't the one people knew about, especially with our 4 Meowths ex in the list that Clifton came up with. I didn't have the best of run but I had been planning to play Bolt for MBL anyways so these games were all a learning experience for me. I played Turbo Ogerpon for the last UBL just to have some fun, didn't expect to get a 6-3 score with it!

MASTER BALL LEAGUE 2026

Why Raging Bolt/Teal Mask Ogerpon?

A good question, why did I go with Bolt. I wasn't really a Bolt player before that, hardly played the deck much to be honest. But I tested a lot for the MBL and everytime, Bolt came up with a good record in these test results which made me think it was the way to go. Yes sure Pult was always the best choice but I wasn't too keen on having my fate decided by mirrors again.

Every time I tested it, it had one of the better scores of any decks I played. And the deck didn't seem to mind whether it was going first or second, both worked well for the deck which was a big plus for me so I had kinda locked not just my Ultra Ball League choices from these test results but also my Master Ball League choice back in April! 

And let's not forget it is best-of-1 format for these UBLs and also Day 1 of Master Ball League, so I had to make sure I had a deck that worked well going first or second. So for anyone who had asked me what the play was and me with my usual answer of "I don't know",  I'm sorry I had to lie a bit but I did know it all along. 

The List

I know what you're thinking....wait this isn't the usual Ian Robb Bolt list. Yes I was testing that too but I just never gelled with it. So I went back to playing Clifton's list instead, as it had lines to help me beat the single prize matchup which I was expecting to see a number of for the MBL.

The one less Mega Kangaskhan ex does mean we start it lesser of the time but it felt fine, as did the 1 Latias ex. Sure prizing it hurts, as it did a few times for me. The Baby Bolt and Koraidon were huge for the deck, giving me outs to deal with single-prize stuff like Alakazam, Festival Lead and Honchkrow. And Baby Bolt is a decent sniper too, especially against Crustle. 

Briar is another card to help with the single prize matchup since we're usually attaching all these energies on Teal Mask Ogerpon anyway! Other than that, it's the usual list. I did play 3 Area Zero Underdephts for Day 1, and switched one out for Jamming Tower for Day 2 as a small meta call which sadly didn't work.

The worst card in the list? If you know me, you know the answer already and it's also why the card is almost hidden in this picture. Unfair Stamp. From testing, I never really got a lot of use out of it, and so many times I kept thinking to myself, would Prime Catcher be better here? Or Hero's Cape? Or Scramble Switch. I did test all 3, and I liked all 3 a lot and if I had the choice, I would have probably gone for Prime Catcher since it works well with Briar and a 3rd gust is great. I accepted defeat, took Unfair Stamp and well it really did nothing for me. The two times I used it in Day 1, it lost me both games.

And now for the fun part of the list, the art choices because I do make an effort for it! 

• Both Lillie's Clefairy ex and Iron Leaves ex were given the Full Art treatment as my alternate attackers, and mainly because I didn't want to get Clefairy and Latias confused again
• Crispin were all in the old reverse-holo art to make it easier to tell them apart, since they're the most important supporter in the deck
• Judge with the new reverse holo, it'll be important in my games, as is Briar, thus the Full Art treatment
• Yellow Border treatment for both Ultra Ball and E-Switch, probably the two most important cards in the deck
• Both Glass Trumpet and Area Zero got the Gym stamp, both interact with Tera on the field
• New XY energies only because I couldn't find my Evolution Grass energies, if not I would have played that instead!

The Run

DAY 1

R1 W vs Max Lim Kwok Yeow

I went: 1st

Deck: Team Rocket's Mewtwo ex

Their final Score: 1-3 Drop

First match of the day and already this fella has pissed me off. Even before we set up for game he says "I'll give you the win, you give me the promo". Sorry but I'm not into that shit, I know I can win. And sure enough I did win because he played really badly. Hey I got my win and I get to keep the promo, sounds like a good deal to me.

Also I don't know how I won from this starting hand!

R2 W vs Ethan Toh Yi Hang

I went: 1st

Deck: Mega Starmie ex/Froslass

Their final Score: 3-3 Drop

We both started Meowth ex but I managed to draw out of it and start swinging into his Mega Starmie for the KO and he didn't have a good response back since I had another Raging Bolt ready to KO his Mega Froslass ex.

R3 W vs Collin Tan Wei Zhi

I went: 1st

Deck: Dragapult ex/Dusknoir

Their final Score: 4-3 (189th)

How do I keep hitting Collin in all these events haha! I knew it was probably a Pult Dusk waiting for me and sadly once again, he had a slow start so I was able to clean up his board from there.

R4 W vs Tristan Tan Yong Cheun

I went: 1st

Deck: N's Zoroark ex

Their final Score: 3-3 Drop

Another game where my awkward starting hand got saved by a really slow start for my opponent so got the dub here.

R5 W vs Gary

I went: 2nd

Deck: N's Zoroark ex

Their final Score: 6-5 (106th)

Sitting at Table 1 for this one so I was abit nervous, especially as this was the win and in for the Day 2 spot, and that was my sole aim for today. I had a normal start for once and got to do my usual gameplan vs Zoroark, so we got the 5-0 start to gurantee my spot into Day 2. Now it's just trying to add as much points as possible for Day 2. That plan didn't go so well...

R6 L vs Saksham Arora

I went: 1st

Deck: Raging Bolt ex/Teal Mask Ogerpon ex

Their final Score: 9-2 (15th)

...because I had a really awkward start here and I had no choice but to put a Khan up front to draw cards. My opponent had 2 energies on board already, managed to get 4 more energies on board from Crispin + Double Teal Mask and got the Iron Leaves ex to get his Khan out of the way (his Latias was prized) to take the 3 prize KO, so I never win from there since I was always on the back foot. I had a chance to come back with Stamp but he drew exactly what he needed to get out of it.

R7 L vs Vincent Quek

I went: 1st

Deck: Okidogi/Barbarcle

Their final Score: 7-4 (76th)

Probably my worst matchup and I still almost got back into the game. I was up 3 prizes but I couldn't close out because my last Boss was prized and he had a Cornerstone Mask Ogerpon on the field for my last two prizes. I had to bank on my Unfair Stamp to help me buy one turn but sure enough, he drew into exactly what he needed to take the win. I thought my Clefairy was safe and then he showed me Power Pro for the KO.

I was happy to make Day 2 but the job still wasn't done and it got tougher for me to make top cut since I will have to start at 5-2. The points standing situation was still looking weird for me, I just needed to make sure, excluding the winner, not more than 4 people would overtake me in the standings. 

I would miss my invite if these were to happen:

- Ricky gets Top 16

- Jasper gets Top 8

- Jeremy gets Top 8

- Anders gets Top 8

- Ryan gets Top 8

- Jon, Kaizer, Shauna, Norman and Evan gets Top 4

After Day 1, a few were eliminated because they didn't make Day 2, aka they are not scoring points (Ricky, Jeremy and Norman). So there was still a small possiblity of me missing cut as 6 people could still overtake me but I had to focus on my own games, 1 round at a time.

DAY 2

R8 LWL vs Syed Farhan

I went: 2nd/2nd/1st

Deck: Dragapult ex/Blaziken ex

Their final Score: 8-3 (42nd)

I had yet another bizzare starting hand in the first round of the day and scooped Game 1 within 2 minutes. My opponent was so confused, "why not play it out?" He was clearly very new to the Bo3 format and I explained to him I had to scoop early to give myself the best chance to get 2 wins from the next 2 games.

Game 2 went perfectly.

Game 3....did not. Another awkward start, I had to get rid of some useful resources just to play the game with Raging Bolt's first attack to discard my hand and draw 6 cards. I took out his Fez thinking his board was weak, and it was. He just so happened to have stamp from no draws in his hand and that stamp lost me the game as I drew into nothing from there. 

R9 WW vs Lim Kim Loong Melvin

I went: 2nd/2nd

Deck: Dragapult ex/Mega Starmie ex

Their final Score: 6-5 (98th)

Both games were actually very close, could have gone either way honestly. His Starmie and Pult made things really awkward for me but managed to get the win both times and both times it came down to like 2-2 prizes or something like that. 

R10 LWW vs Li Guoxiong Jasper

I went: 2nd/1st/2nd

Deck: Team Rocket's Honchkrow

Their final Score: 6-5 (90th)

I saw the pairing and I knew I was in trouble, Honchkrow. One of my worse matchups but I had already practiced this matchup a lot in the lead up to the weekend. I knew my list would give me a decent chance to win if draws were favourable.

Jasper's Macs setup was funny!

Game 1 was the usual game, he just steamrolled me with his set-up. Game 2 he had a much slower set-up and my tech choices came in handy here, both Baby Bolt and Koraidon did their job and I managed to pull off the Briar with Ogerpon for game in Game 2.

Game 3 was much closer, my disruption did buy me some time this time as did attacking with 1 prizers. We did go to time just as he KOed my Koraidon to go down to 2-2 in prizes. Now here's where reading the rules paid off for me, I knew that if we were tied with 2 prizes left at time, the next KO is game, so I called over the judge just to confirm that I just needed to take 1 KO to win and they agreed and I got the KO with Mega Kangaskhan, even though I could have gone for the Briar play again which is what I was lining up for.

R11 LWL vs Hannah Koh Shu En

I went: 2nd/1st/2nd

Deck: Raging Bolt ex/Teal Mask Ogerpon ex

Their final Score: 8-3 (36th)

And we round things off with the Bolt Queen herself. Game 1 I was slow off the block, she took the lead and won from there, I think I scooped with 2 prizes to go. Game 2 was the other way round, I got the first big KO and she scooped. Game 3 was a really weird game, we both were bricking and had to go into Mega Kangaskhan ex even thought we both knew that wasn't ideal in this match. 

She got the first hit in with Passmian and I KOed it. Now I had my prize race sorted, I take either a 2 prizes KO next into a 3 prize KO on her Khan or the other way round. The problem was, she managed to get Stretcher and Fighting to get Passimian back on board and that honestly lost me the game, because I couldn't set up to take a 2 prizer out from that spot because of my rubbish draws.

I played it out as best as I can, and we did hit time but again, I read the rules and this time it wasn't in my favour as she had lesser prizes than me and on her turn so I knew that was game. Didn't even need the judges to tell us what was happening, I kinda explained it.

Ended the day 7-4, not the result I was hoping for, I wanted to get a Top 32 finish to add a few more points to help my cause to get the Worlds invite. But that cause was already helped for me by Round 2. Jasper A lost which meant he couldn't make Top 8 and in the next round, Anders lost which meant now only 3 people can overtake me in the standings which meant I was guaranteed the Worlds invite. 

The funny part was, Anders lost to Anselm, the same guy I had been play testing with for the last 2-3 weeks, and he's the one that punched my ticket to San Francisco. I owe him a nice chicken rice meal at the very least! 

Worlds Invite #2/Season Recap

The Second World Championships Invite is now Guaranteed!

And there we have it. The long nine month grind was over. 

- 33 Great Ball Leagues played

- A further 14 Great Ball Leagues I was declined and failed walk in

- Played in all 12 Ultra Ball Leagues, where I was declined for 8 of them!

- Going to a total of 47 Great Ball League events + 12 Ultra Ball Leagues for the 9 month period

- Spending a total of $810 in event entries (34 x 15 for GBLs and 25 x 12 for UBLs), which is quite painful for me as I'm not making good money at the moment

- All that for a chance to fight for my Worlds invite, and now I've gotten my 2nd World Championships invite, the pain and the grind was worth it!

Now for a bit of a summary of the whole season, these are the decks I played through the 47 events I was in:

And for the decks I scored points with. I scored points with all but one deck, that being Gholdengo ex with Energy Search Pro, everything else scored me some points:

But of course, not all these points are counted for the points standings as we do have a Best Finish Limit of 8, so with the BFL in mind, these are the decks that got me my 225 LP to get me the invite to play at the 2026 Pokémon World Championships in San Francisco, California, USA!

Yup Charizard carried me this season and it's kinda sad that I don't get to play it for the World Championships. It's also kinda funny, the deck was released during the week of my first World Championships in Yokohama, Japan....and of course I picked up a few to use for playtesting purposes because I knew I was going to play it and it rotated in March. I did at least send it off with a win, and the 7th GBL win of the season too! And if you're wondering, I got 4 GBL wins with Dawn Zard, 2 with Pult Dusknoir and 1 with Zard Pidgeot.

And finally, the final standings of the season!

So these are the 24 players who will be representing Singapore at the 2026 Pokemon World Championships in the Masters, Seniors and Juniors categories from the TCG side of things! We'll do our best to make everyone home in SG proud! Thanks for following along with my crazy season and see you all in San Francisco! 

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

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

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

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

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

The Dawn Zard Lists

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

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

v1.1 - My initial PBL 2025 list

v1.2 - Stuttgart Winning List

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

v1.5 - Unfair Stamp build

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

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

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

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

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

v1.7 - Jackson's list

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

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

v1.8 - Korea winning list

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

2025-26 Season 2 - 11 GBLs + 4 UBLs

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

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

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

List

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

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

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

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

List

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

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

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

List

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

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

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

List

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

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

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

List

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

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

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

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

List

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

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

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

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

List

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

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

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

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

List

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

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

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

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

List

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3 GBL Wins in 1 Week??? - Singapore PTCG Season 2025/26 Season 2

So I had one crazy week this past week (Dec 14-21 2025). I went from still being on the outside looking in trying to have a shot of making it back to the Worlds Championships for the second time, to having a decent shot of actually doing just that, which as mentioned before, was my hopes for this season anyway. 

I didn't bother much with Hawai'i or Anaheim because they're too expensive but San Francisco is perfect for me, especially since it's the one place in America I keep going to anyway (and I don't have to worry about finding for a place to stay too).

But yeah, I somehow won my 2nd GBL of the season, which is already more than what I got last season. And I won a 3rd the next day. And I won a 4th two days after that! And all that were done with the same 60 card list, that being Charizard ex/Noctowl, aka Dawn Zard. 

The same deck that won the recent Stuttgart Regional (apart from one card) and also, the same concept of a deck I was secretly testing for the Premier Ball League back in November so I was pretty comfortable with it. I ended up playing that for 5 GBLs, scoring points in all 5 and as for the 6th GBL, I was too tired and switched to a different deck and got no points out of it.

The List

Nothing special about the list, except I cut the 4th Nest Ball for a Pidgeotto as an out to item lock stuff, namely Dragapult decks and Gardevoir decks with their Budew and Frillish nonsense. I mean it's not the greatest answers because they can still Iono my Pidgeotto away after I have taken it from a Fan Call but I still need an out to get my Pidgeot ex up and going anyway and that's the best one, especially with the Singapore meta in mind.

Everything else is just normal. The 4 Dawns is the engine for the deck so the 3-3 Noctowl just helps everything to work the way it should and we have our main support in Pidgeot ex and sometimes Fezandipiti ex and the two main attackers in Charizard ex and Terapagos ex. Fan Rotom can take some cheap prizes early on in the game and Pidgeot ex itself can be a good attacker too. And of course we still do have the Dusknoir line to either take a prize or help set-up some big plays, sometimes with Briar in mind.

I've seen a few people trying out Unfair Stamp and Counter Catcher in place of the 2nd Iono and Prime Catcher, I'm personally not a fan of it. The deck is trying to be as aggressive as posssible in most games so we usually don't have time to use Counter Catcher. And I've just never been a fan of Unfair Stamp personally, that card has lost me way too many games it should have helped won me so I'd rather just not play it anymore. Sure Boss and Stamp sounds fun but you can also do Prime and Iono anyway.

Before my first GBL of the season, I was sitting in 17th which was not a bad spot I'd say, mostly thanks to my GBL win at Brick's Play. I felt I hadn't really done well at that point in all honestly, with only one other Top 8 finish and most of my points coming from UBLs and PBL, but they were all single-digit scores so it wasn't good enough for me.

GBL #3 Season 2 @ Mint Condition - 12th/40 - 4/2/0 (+8 LP)

• R1 L Dragapult ex/Dusknoir
• R2 L Dragapult ex/Dusknoir
• R3 W Charizard ex/Noctowl
• R4 W Gholdengo ex/Lunatone
• R5 W Dragapult ex/Dusknoir
• R6 W Gardevoir ex

Not the best of start to the season so far, especially starting 0-2 after meeting two Dragapults. Sure the match-up is bad but if I can have a decent start, I know I can beat them. The problem was I had a dead hand both times, and to make things worse, I prized Pidgeotto in one matchup and Charmeleon in the other.

Even my R3 game wasn't looking good at one point, I had a slower start then my opponent but then he made a mistake by using his Dusknoir to take out my Charizard instead of going after my lone Duskull on bench which gave me the opportunity to go for the Dusk Bomb + Briar play for the win.

Everything else after that went smoothly. My R4 opponent bricked and I took a giant lead. My R5 opponent had a slow start for a Pult player and I managed to take all 6 prizes with Terapagos ex! The last game was a tricky one but my Klefki bought me enough turns to make a comeback to win it at the end.

I ended up 12th, the lowest resistance of those on 4-2 purely because I started 0-2 and one of the guys that beat me dropped so I had no shot of making Top 8 here. I still felt a bit vindicated that at least the Pidgeotto addition did help me in my games today.

GBL #4 Season 2 @ Happyland Collectibles - 1st/32 - 4/0/0 (+30 LP)

• R1 W Dragapult ex/Dusknoir
• R2 W Ceruledge ex
• R3 W Alakazam/Dudunsparce
• R4 W Alakazam/Dudunsparce

You could tell how annoyed I was seeing a Pult at R1 again but this time, I had one of my better starts, I had my board set-up near perfectly and then I noticed something while I was doing my deck check....where are my Pidgeots? Yup I prized both of them. So I had to change my set-up a little bit but thankfully it still all worked out in the end, and I never did use a Pidgeot in that match.

R2 was looking bad initially, all I had was Klefki and I was praying my opponent didn't have a way to donk me. He went to grab Squawkabilly ex and tried to use it's ability before I had to remind him of what Klefki did. And that pretty much won me the game because I did top deck a Dawn to set up while my opponent couldn't do much.

R3 was Alakazam, a weird matchup. He had a very slow start and prized his Psyduck so my Dusks were able to destroy his set-up before he could get anything going. Not the same for R4, although my opponent was bricking at one point. He had taken an Alakazam but didn't evolve. He had 11-12 cards in hand and I don't know why, I went for an Iono that turn when he had already struggled to get an Alakazam going and that almost cost me the game. 

Thankfully I got my Klefki/Prime at the right time after that Iono to go down to 2 prizes while he was at 4 prizes, and with him getting an easy KO on my Zard and going down to 2, all I needed was to up my 2nd Zard and get Briar for game and I got it from my Noctowl off the Fezandipiti.

There was no 5th round here because the other x-0 player lost to a downpair which meant I was the only 4-0 player at the end of Round 4, which means the event ended one round early as there was a clear winner!

Finally got my 2nd GBL win of the season, and in my head I was telling myself, "2 down, 6 more to go". I knew my realistic chance of making it to Worlds is probably get 8 GBL wins if possible, knowing my luck with UBLs and hopefully a good enough showing at the MBL.

GBL #5 Season 2 @ Mint Condition - 1st/32 - 5/0/0 (+30 LP)

• R1 W Ceruledge ex
• R2 W Mega Box
• R3 W Charizard ex/Noctowl
• R4 W Charizard ex/Noctowl
• R5 W Mega Kangaskhan ex/Bouffalant

First up was against a Ceruledge and he had a slow start and couldn't quite comeback from it. R2 was Mega Box which was a bit tricky, he had some really well timed Penny(s) to make it harder for me to get the KO, Terapagos was the MVP here for setting me up to win the game, as did Klefki.

Two mirror matches up next, my opponent in R3 went first which made things tricky for me. He couldn't get around my two Duskull trap near the end of the game which won me the game. Similar story for R4 but he had a slower start so I got to reach that point much faster. 

The last round was Tank Khan which I knew was a tough matchup, and I saw my starting hand and I thought....welp I'm cooked, no 2-peat for me haha. And my opponent has two Bouffalants and passes! So now I had a chance to try to take advantage of this by setting my Terapagos ex up to take out the first Bouff and hope he doesn't have a way to get anything else down. He got a Stretcher and I had to KO another one. 

Then he top decks Arven to set up his board but by this point, I had taken 3 prizes on just Bouffalants which meant his Mega Kangaskhan wasn't as tanky as it should be and I managed to get the KO on it with Zard + Dusknoir. 

Two GBL wins in two days is just crazy, especially with how variance can play such a big factor in these games, and it being a bo1 format for us here in Asia! I wasn't expecting this at the start of the week, especially with how that first GBL went for me. "3 down, 5 more to go", I just have to believe I can do it.

GBL #7 Season 2 @ Cardboard Collectibles - 11th/32 - 3/2/0 (+8 LP)

• R1 W Mega Kangaskhan ex/Bouffalant
• R2 L Dragapult ex/Dusknoir
• R3 L Dragapult ex/Dusknoir
• R4 W Gholdengo ex/Lunatone
• R5 W Gardevoir ex

R1 was tricky as this Khan Bouff player did manage to set up very early and got some Pennys at the right time to deny me some big 3 prize KOs and they also had a Golduck down at one point! But Terapagos and Charizard did apply enough pressure for me to get the double KOs I needed to win the game.

R2 and R3 were pretty much the same. Both vs Dragapult, both I had a dead starting hand, both I got stuck after an Iono + Budew. Both I just drew pass the whole way with no set-up. Those were really painful, I was hopeful of a 3-peat, I knew it was near impossible with the amount of Pults that day but I still wanted to think I could do it but alas it wasn't to be.

R4 vs Gholdengo was a smooth game for me, managed to get the big KO for game. R5 vs Gardevoir was anything but smooth, I went for a greedy play that almost cost me game but using Dusknoir then Stretcher to re-use it to KO two Ralts and then attacking the active Ralts. I almost forgot I had given her two prizes and with her Mega Diancie, she could easily take her last 2 prizes just from it. Thankfully my Iono bought me enough turns to go for the Prime + Briar for game. Not the best of days but 8 points is still ok I guess, better than most of my UBL and PBL scores funnily enough.

The 2 GBL wins had jumped me up from 17th all the way up to 6th, which is good enough at the moment. If I can stay there for the rest of the season, as mentioned before, it's the top 8 in standings who gets the Worlds invite so that would be the best scenario for me. I've done it once before back in 2023, maybe I can do it again in 2026?

GBL #8 Season 2 @ G28 Trading - 1st/32 - 5/0/0 (+30 LP)

• R1 W N's Zoroark ex
• R2 W Charizard ex/Pidgeot ex
• R3 W Future Box
• R4 W Dragapult ex/Dusknoir
• R5 W Ceruledge ex

R1 was tricky and not just because it was against N's Zoroark, I finally figured out why people said it was tough to play at G28 as we were sitting outside an you could feel the heat. And also the rain when it started to drizzle just for a bit. My starting hand had 2 Area Zero which was not a good thing as I knew he played that silly Watchtower card and sure enough, he used Iono and put the Watchtower down Turn 1. Thankfully I drew into Dawn and Rare Candy so I could get my Zard up and bench a Charmander to use Blazing Destruction to discard the Watchtower. He couldn't respond to my setup after that turn and managed to win from there but it was looking real tricky there.

R2 my opponent had a complete brick unfortunately so I got to get my Pidgeot and Zard up and took all my prizes as quickly as possible. R3 was a strange one, my opponent flipped over the mini Miraidon that I hadn't seen in forever, it was Future Box! So I knew in this matchup I didn't want to focus on getting Pidgeot up first but instead get the Terapagos up. I managed to get the clean KO on his Iron Hands with Terapagos ex. I was getting ready to set up for my Zards but I saw he was setting up a lot of Grass energies on his side so I decided to hold off and just focus on Terapagos + Pidgeot to get the next 2 prizes and have Zard up to take the final prizes to deny the Iron Leaves play.

R4 was up against Dragapult, the matchup I didn't want to see but I was bound to hit one as of the x-0s left, it was me, Ceruledge and two Pults. Thankfully he didn't get Budew down turn 1 but I also did not get my Pidgeot up Turn 2 with my weird starting hand. The big moment of the match come down to him setting up for a 3-prize on my Terapagos ex and Fan Rotom and I knew I could get around it with Pidgeot ex attacking his Pult with Blustery Wind and discarding my stadium to discard some of my benched Pokemon, I just needed to make sure I got two extra Pokemon on bench to discard the two obvious targets for him and managed to get there with Noctowl.

He did make things a bit hard by Turo-ing his Pult, all I needed was Zard to hit into it for the KO but his other Pult only had one energy on it so a 2-shot was still good enough to get me the win. Thankfully the other Pult at x-0 lost so it was Ceruledge for R5. And that was my 3rd GBL win in 5 days, how is that possible??? 

"4 down, 4 to go!" Now I actually do have a chance to make it to the World Championships in San Francisco next year thanks to these 3 GBL wins coming at the perfect time for me, especially since I'll have to miss the next few ones due to prior commitments (aka holiday). 

Don't really need to mention the GBL at Brints, I decided to change it up and play Dragapult which was a bad mistake, I started 0-3, climbed back up to 3-3 and only finished 29th out of 64 players. I was tired after the G28 GBL and honestly, I probably should have gone home and rest and not play again, which is why I have this rule for myself to just play one event a day because I knew this would happen if I tried to play 2 in one day.

I just hope I had done the deck enough justice with the triple GBL win, I always believed in the Dawn concept before anyone even knew about it. And of course big thanks to Oscar Madsen for building these lists and helping me out initially too! He showed the first version of Dawn Zard back in October and I was already building the same list to try out myself. The man is just goated when it comes to deck building!

And hey I'm still playing Charizard ex which is my favourite deck and has been for the past 2 years at this point. Sadly I won't ever get to play it in a major event again but hey, I might as well strike while the iron is hot and try to give Charizard ex the best send-off I possibly can before it does rotate in April.

And it's not just IRL, I've been doing quite ok with this deck online too with my usual antics on Play Limitless. Sure, I don't have a good result on a big online tournament just yet but I've gotten two wins so far and bubbled out of decent finishes 7 times. I'm not even joking, 7 times! My score with Zard Noctowl online so far is 66-32 which is not bad I'd say, especially with how weird things can get online (a number of these losses are also down to bugs in the game).

I hope I can keep this run going, it's not easy winning these events, let alone trying to get into them! I missed out at yesterday's GBL even though there was a 50% chance to get in. That's just how it is sometimes. I just hope I can play well enough to get the last 4 GBL wins of the season somehow, I don't know how realistic it is but I'll try to get there. I do probably need one good UBL run to help me get there too. 

On a personal note, I've already beaten my points score from last season which was 129, and hopefully I've done enough to better the 32nd place in the standings that I got for the 2023-24 AND 2024-25 seasons. Would be nice to repeat the 3rd place in the standings for 2022-23 but I know that's unlikely to happen. Of course, I could make my life a whole lot easier if I were to somehow get finals at MBL but that is still a long way to go, but for right now these GBLs have my full focus. Thanks for reading and I hope you all have a great time with the upcoming holiday period and a great 2026 moving forward!