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| Worlds 2026 |
It's been a week or since the 2026 Pokémon World Championships concluded and I got to participate in it for the 2nd time, my previous attempt was back in 2023 when I finished a respectable record of 5-3 so obviously I wanted to do one better, and get into Day 2 of Worlds this time around. And if you read the title of this entry, then you can kind of guess what happened.
Deck choices
For this Worlds, I wasn't too sure what I wanted to play. Charizard ex got me my invite but it was rotated and post rotation, I played Raging Bolt ex for 3 UBLs and the MBL, but I didn't too that well in any of them so I wasn't sure if I should stick with it. So I started testing many different options.
The decks I tested the most and was seriously considering:
- Dragapult ex
- Hammer build
- with Dusknoir
- with Blaziken ex
- with Dudunsparce
- with Toucannon
- Slowking
- Basic Box
- Ogerpon Box (Prism Basic Box)
- Raging Bolt ex/Teal Mask Ogerpon ex
- Lillie's Clefairy ex
- N's Zoroark ex
- Mega Excadrill ex
- Mega Lopunny ex/Dudunsparce
- Greninja ex/Dusknoir
A month out, my initial ranking would have been this from my self testing I had done:
- Basic Box (Prism Basic Box)
- Raging Bolt ex/Teal Mask Ogerpon ex
- Slowking
- Dragapult ex/Blaziken ex
- Mega Excadrill ex
Let's just explain the last few ones, Zoroark I just felt I didn't have enough experience and game time to bring it to the biggest event of the year so even though I liked the Tome build, I couldn't go with that just due to lack of experience with the deck. Excadrill was my "in case of emergecy brake glass" deck, I was still suffering from some health issue leading up to Worlds so if it was still bad, I would have just sent Excadrill, thankfully everything cleared up as I was in Japan just before heading off to San Francisco.
Lopunny and Greninja were just rouge choices I had played a lot of, but just didn't feel confident enough to bring either. I do like both deck but just didn't think they'd get me there. Speaking of rouges, I did know of the Malaysian Tox Box deck for about 2 months, but as I didn't play much with it, I chose not to go for it.
Slowking was at one point my initial choice to play for Worlds, my spreadsheet said it was the best play and it I had played it at 3 local events, went 3-0 in all of them so I thought....maybe that's the one. But something changed as I was in Japan, the deck just started not doing well and I had my doubts with it and decided to go with the comfort choice of Raging Bolt.
As for Dragapult, I know it's the deck to play but I had a very simple reason for not playing it to Worlds. There's gonna be 100+ players better than me in that room, and they know the Pult mirror better than me so I don't hold any advantages there. And I didn't play Pult much this season either so that just felt like the wrong choice to me. So Bolt it was, it had a good Pult matchup and can keep up with almost every deck not named Alakazam and Festival Lead which I didn't think would show up in big numbers so why not go with that choice (I was clearly wrong when it came to Alakazam).
Deck List
Before showing off the list I played, I wanted to share the ones I was testing initially. But first up is not Raging Bolt, but one I was initially thinking I would end up playing. It's the one that won the Japan Championships and I played it to the Pokemon World Cup with Team Singapore, winning 3 of my 4 matches, only losing to Jackson Ford in a very close game too. My main issue of the deck was that it couldn't do enough damage to stuff like Mega Excadrill ex and it was everywhere before Worlds, which made me think it was going to be a popular choice (it wasn't but I still did hit 2 of them in the latter rounds).
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| The list I played for Pokemon World Cup |
The first was one I had seen doing well in so many online events which got me back into testing Raging Bolt in the first place, this was from Jose Roberto Rueda. Big shoutout to him for doing so well and also him and Juan Sebastian Caballero had a well written Bolt guide on Metafy, give it a look!
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| The first list |
I tested with this the most and even won an online tournament with this exact 60 and it kinda made up my mind that day that this was likely the one for me to go with.
Then I got a message from Harpr who was also testing Raging Bolt along with the South African players and wanted to share notes about it and I was more than happy to since no-one else from the Singapore contingent apart from Jeremy and Kaizer were considering Bolt so I didn't really have anyone else to talk about the deck with. He too had made a Metafy guide on Bolt, another one I would consider checking out.
I played his list with a few changes (the main being a 2-2 Lighting Fighting energy to see if the list could open up a space for some techs) to a local bo3 event in Japan at Ragnarok Gaming as they were hosting a test event for those going to Worlds and well....I am too so why not!
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| Harpr's list |
I ended up finishing 1st out of 14 players and I got to play a friendly bo3 set with former world champion himself Takuto Itagaki and also won that set which gave me more confidence going into Worlds. Takuto was also nice enough to give me some suggestions on what I should change from the list, mostly going for Unfair Stamp over Prime Catcher and some tech cards I should keep or change.
A day before Worlds, my fellow SG Raging Bolt player Kaizer shared me his list and it was something similar to what I played for the Master Ball League with Koraidon and Raging Bolt in the list as single prize attackers. It was probably better into stuff like Festival Lead and Alakazam but because I had been testing the first list the most, I wanted to keep with that and stick with what I'm comfortable with and not change something last minute.
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| Kaizer's list |
As for the final list, here it is:
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| My list for Worlds 2026 |
I did make some changes in the end:
- Iron Leaves ex for Switch
- The idea was I had more outs to draw into an Iron Leaves ex to counter Sob lock plays than I would had I played Switch since I had Cyrano and Ultra Ball to get Iron Leaves as well
- The cost was if my bench is full, I wouldn't be able to get out of Sob lock
- Jamming Tower for the 4th Area Zero Underdepths
- This one had been weighing in my mind for the longest time. I knew of Excadrill players and also a few Pult players likely going for Hero's Cape and I wanted some outs to it. And I knew Basic Box were likely to depend on Lillie's Pearl. I also wanted out to silly stuff like Handheld Fand, Lucky Helmet and Binding Mochi
- It can also act as a pseudo Chien Pao to clear out my bench of unwanted bench sitters
Pokémon World Championships 2026 - Day 1
Round 1 vs Nobuto Hongo (Slowking)
- G1 I go 2nd L
- G2 I go 1st W
- G3 I go 2nd W
He looked very nervous going into the first round and as I spoke to him, I found out it was his first WCS so I told him not to worry, just have fun and do your best. Little did he know, I was also very nervous. (I also didn't realize he won the first Champions League of last season too!)
Back in 2023, I went into that event quite calm, no nerves, nothing. But this was different, I was more nervous than I usually was. To the point I finished my drink even before the first game ended!
And that first game was just so bad. I had forgotten to bench Mega Kangaskhan ex for some reason and he punished me by getting prime catcher off his Lille and ultra ball for the attacker and got Wondrous Patch too. Then I forgot I had no Latias on board and tried to retreat by Khan, whoops. So I scooped game 1.
Game 2 he bricked, he just had no attackers going so I was able to build up the Wellspring + Boss to KO both Slowpokes that came down on the field and he never recovered.
Game 3 was actually looking really bad, he got the KO on my Khan and since I knew he could easily do that, I took the risk to set up two Khans to attack. My hail marry move was to set up Unfair Stamp through Cipher and hope he would struggle from it, take the one prize and hope he had no response (I had done a Wellspring KO before then to take the first 2 prizes) and now all I needed was boss to KO his Mega Khan.
He drew pass and I started to set up my Rag Bolt to attack his Khan while retreating into Chien Pao to make it harder for him to take his final 3 prizes. He took out the CPao but I had everything I needed to boss KO his Khan with Bolt.
1-0 up, good start so far but I was still feeling nervous.
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| Me playing in Round 1 |
R2 vs Jeremy Castro (Dragapult ex)
- G1 I go 1st L
- G2 I go 1st W
- G3 I go 2nd W
Next up was a name I recognised, because I did remember Jeremy had made Day 2 at both EUIC and NAIC, especially the latter just months ago with Dragapult so I've got someone who has a proven track record with his deck.
Game 1 ended in turn 1 on his turn because my turn 1 was attach a grass energy on TM Ogerpon and pass but he had ultra ball for Meowth to get Crispin to set up Moltres for the KO. The problem is, I had an Iron Crown ex I could have started in hand so that was a mistake.
Game 2 he just could not set up any Drakloaks at all, finding his first one after 4 turns! Game 3 was much more even, his hammer flips were mostly tails so that helped. I managed to go with the usual game plan, Khan takes first two, Clefairy took the next two and thankfully he didn’t disrupt my hand as I had stretcher and Crispin to KO his 2nd Pult.
R3 vs Kohei Kurita (Dragapult ex/Dusknoir)
- G1 I go 2nd W
- G2 I go 2nd L
- G3 I go 1st W
For once I won a game 1 and it was a quick one as he struggled to set up and scooped after the 3rd turn as I had taken 3 prizes already. Game 2 actually didn’t start until 7 minutes later, as we got deck checked and guess who the judge was? Yes my own friend and fellow SGer Charmaine haha! (Why you always bully me lol)
The judge call did actually calm me down funnily enough so I wasn’t feeling so nervous anymore but Game 2 was terrible, I had a dead hand and just couldn’t set up at all and his Dusk bombs did a big number on me. Game 3, just like the other Pult game, went to plan! 2 prizes up, KO Pult with Bolt and last KO with Clefairy. 3-0 start at Worlds, I'm feeling good right now. Then I see my pairing for the next round...
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| Uh-oh |
R4 vs Diego Cassiraga (Alakazam)
- G1 I go 2nd W
- G2 I go 2nd L
- G3 I go 1st L
Remember when I said I wasn’t feeling nervous anymore? Oh it came back in a big way when I saw who I got paired with for Round 4. None other than the 2017 World Champion Diego Cassiraga! Nervous but also excited, now I get to see how I’d stack up against one of the greats in the game.
And then he flipped over Abra and I thought “oh god….this is bad”, this was one of the matchups I was hoping not to hit. It’s a near autoloss. I say that even though I did win game 1 thanks to a well timed Sob on his Fez. I was trying to set up KO on it and one of his Kadabras to deny him the draw but one of his last Dudunsparce got him the Shaymin. He put it down and I went after the Shaymin to KO both with boss and he scooped as I was down to 2 prizes with no Khans on board thanks to CPao.
Don’t remember much of game 2 but his Genesect didn’t come down early so I got the stamp off this time but he drew out of it and i couldn’t keep up with him.
Game 3 just reminded me why he’s a World Champion and I’m just a nobody. I went first, started Khan but no energies in hand and passed. So he essentially got to start first.
I did get to a point where I did get attacks going off and the turn I was going to take my 2nd prize, my top deck was unfair stamp, and I thought to myself, oh this could be good since he has to attack next turn. His next turn, he draws some cards and uses Eri and immediately throws my Stamp away haha. I looked at him, he looked at me and we both knew that was game.
He was a fierce competitor for sure, in game he was ruthless, scary even I’d say. But before the game and after the game, he was just the nicest guy ever, even told me “hey I follow you on Twitter” and we had a nice chat before our game. That’s probably why he’s a World Champion after all. I learned so much just from that set against him, and even though I lost, I still felt good. I was bummed for him when he lost in finals.
Also this game kinda made me realise…maybe I made a mistake by having Iron Crowns in the deck as it was useless in this one matchup I needed it the most.
R5 vs Hayden Matthews (N's Zoroark ex)
- G1 I go 1st W
- G2 I go 2nd L
- G3 I go 1st W
Another name I recognized only because we’ve played each other in online tournaments a number of times! Another lovely guy to play against, he was super friendly the whole way.
He whiffed the first two prize KO in the game which meant I had the advantage as I took two single prizes down with Khan, followed by Iron Leaves and then finally Teal Mask Ogerpon.
2nd game he took the first two prize KO and I just could not catch back up in the prize race and scooped as I saw the writing on the wall after the 3rd and 4th prizes since he still had two more bosses to work with. My Hail Mary of the Stamp didn’t work either.
3rd game was a bit similar to the first but the two prizes came from Wellspring which was my ideal attacker. His red card did make it a bit sketchy for me but I got a bit lucky to draw into the pieces I needed for TM Ogerpon to take the final KO.
R6 vs Emiliano Zapata (Mega Excadrill ex)
- G1 I go 1st W
- G2 I go 1st L
- G3 I go 1st L
So the funny story is I didn’t even realise Emiliano was on stream the round before this, whoops. But it was my first Excadrill matchup of the day. Game 1 came down to the wire, it took us a long while haha! He had his Excadrill set up with Cape but thankfully I had Jamming Tower in the list as my last minute tech choice and it won me that game.
G2 wasn’t looking good for me, he got the ideal setup and took out my Khan very quickly. We traded prizes back and forth, I even KOed his Metagross with my Latias ex! It came down to a point where I just could not draw the pieces to get a Raging Bolt attack going and had to gamble on Mega Khan hitting 3 heads from Rapid-Fire Combo. I got two heads, but not the third for the KO and the win so I lost that one.
G3 was just sad, I started with just a Teal Mask Ogerpon so I was already quite behind despite going first. I managed to claw myself back into the game, and I put myself in a position to win off a boss, I just needed him to not draw into 4 energies off his 3 Metangs for game, and since he had used Recycler the turn before, it was very likely he would get it and he did, winning on Turn 2 of overtime. Had he missed, I had boss waiting in hand for game.
That was a painful loss to take because I felt I should have won that, having tested that matchup a lot going into this event. I knew what I was supposed to do and just couldn't draw well enough to get me there. 4-2, now I needed to win two more games to me in a better spot for Day 2 at Worlds.
R7 vs Isaiah Cheville (Mega Excadrill ex)
- G1 I go 1st W
- G2 I go 1st W
My heart sank a bit when the pairings went up because I knew the next two games were must win games.....but against my own friend Zaya???? I was not expecting a friendly fire this late on in the event.
This was my only 2 game set of the entire day and unfortunately Zaya had poor setups in both games. G1 I managed to get Wellspring going very quickly and Zaya scooped to go to G2. Raging Bolt pulled it's weight for the next game. I did get some favorable draws this time around, unlike the last round.
5-2, and I just need one point to make Day 2, aka an intentional draw (ID). The issue is, I've been down this road, I took the ID at Melbourne Regional and screwed myself of any chance of doing well, so I already knew I can't do that again. I had a few friends come up to me to talk about the last round, all agreeing that I should fight for the win unless I hit an Alakazam or Festival Lead, then I should just take the ID since both of them were unwinnable matchups.
R8 vs Fabio Battistella (Basic Box)
- G1 I go 1st W
- G2 I go 1st L
- G3 I go 2nd L
Pairings went up and I recognized this name from doing all my reports for Pokestats, I knew how good Fabio is so this was always going to be a tough round. He offered the ID to me right away (I had no idea at this point that he had just gone from 5-0 to 5-2 so I kinda understood why he wanted the ID), but I told him I couldn't go for that, I had to give myself the best shot of doing well for the event and going into Day 2 at 5-2-1 would kill my hopes of making top cut. Sure I can still earn some money but that's not really my aim, I'm aiming higher than that. Go big or die trying right?
Game 1 went perfectly, I kept the Jamming Tower tech hidden until I took the 3rd and 4th prizes and all I needed was a boss to clean up the game. Game 2 I drew poorly and never came back from his Unfair Stamp, he had boss for game in the end when I was just about to make a comeback.
Before Game 3 started Fabio once again offered the ID, and once again I had to reject it. But I was feeling super nervous now, this one game will decide whether I will get to play in Day 2 of the World Championships for the first time or be a spectator for tomorrow, I've come too far not to at least give it a try. My first mistake was probably choosing to go 2nd, I had noticed he kept wanting to go 2nd so I thought I should take that option away from him.
Then came the big misplay, I had my Mega Khan set up to KO either his Clefairy or Meowth. I was holding on to Jamming Tower in my hand, my initial instinct was, just put it down, take the KO on Clefairy and find a way to go around the 2nd Pearl (either KO Clefairy and Khan or double Boss for game). And then a second thought came to mind....what if I just Boss KO Meowth first, save the Tower for the KO later on and give myself to close up the game with just 2 prizes left.
What I should have done is just put down Jamming Tower and KO his attacker, and find my way to get the last 4 prizes. I should have also been aware that he has an easy way to search out Unfair Stamp, in the previous two games he went aggressive with Meowth for Cipher to always get Stamp so that should have been on my mind since he'd need to build up another attacker. So I don't know what got to me to boss up the Meowth instead, that was the wrong move that pretty much killed my game I think.
As I suspected, he did get Stamp off and I drew two unplayable cards out of it. Clefairy hit my Khan, draw for turn, another unplayable card. Draw 2 more cards from Run Errand, and it was two Area Zeros, aka still more unplayable cards (my hand if I remember correctly was 2 Area Zeros, Iron Leaves, E-Switch and Mega Khan).
It felt someone somewhere was punishing me for that bad misplay, that was karma for misplaying the turn before. I did manage to put myself within two prizes of winning the game but I knew hoping he wouldn't draw a boss for game was a tall task. And sure enough he had it.
5-3, I took the gamble to play it out and it failed on me and I only have myself to blame for that. But I wasn't the only one playing out their games, to my right was the one and only Tord Reklev playing it out and unfortunately he too lost. The table next to me had Sander Wojcik as well, and he too lost.
And just like my first Worlds, the 3 players who beat me all made it into Day 2, but this time there was a 4th as Kohei also made Day 2. In fact, all of my opponents apart from my first opponent won 5 games, so yeah those were some tough players I had to go through so I hope my 5-3 score meant something after seeing these scores at the very least.
Reflections
It just hurts to miss Day 2 by just one point this time, and sure, I could have just IDed and get into Day 2 if that was my ultimate aim, but my aim was higher than that, I wanted to push for a top cut finish because I felt I could do it. Maybe unrealistic but I had put so much time into this deck, I thought I should at least give myself the chance to go for glory and not settle for just being in it for the sake of it.
What hurt more was the misplay and two people close to me thought it was perhaps my lack of playing in such high-stakes game that led to me making the misplay in game 3 of Round 8, to which I can agree with them. It did get me and I got nervous and made the wrong choice when I should have stayed calmed and followed my initial instinct of KOing the Clefairy with the Jamming Tower (great tech choice btw).
It's a bit funny that I got the same exact score as I did in 2023 (5-3 both times) but both were completely different. The first time I was confident in my deck but not in my skills as a player and that got me. Well much more of the same this time around but a little different too, less confidence with my deck but more with myself as a player and I could see improvements already from these 3 years.
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| Top tables at Worlds in Round 11 |
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| The venue |
- Double deck boxes in all 3 versions
- Playmat for the XP and San Fran version (I don’t know why I didn’t pick up the Worlds one, I had it and put it back at some point)
- Sleeves for all 3 versions
- Dice box for all 3 versions
- Worlds binder
- San Fran Worlds bottle
- Some fancy Charizard shirt from Europe
- The XP Zard shirt
- The Charmander and Geodude Lego set
- San Fran keychain (I have loads of keychains featuring San Francisco btw haha)
- Ascended Heroes booster bundle (before you people ask, yes I know I should have picked up the booster box too, that’s a misplay on my part, I didn’t realise how much it was worth)
- Some random Charmander sticker set
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| This SF line looked sick |
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| Pokemon Center line |
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| The OG trio in Lego |
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| Trubbish! |
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| The starting scene from Pokemon Red all those years ago |
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| Worlds 2027 in Singapore! |
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| Team Singapore in San Francisco for Worlds 2026. See you all next year in Singapore! |
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