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!

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!