Since I'm turning 30 this year, I thought why not create a few Top 30 lists of things that I like or have done so I've done a few list that covers my interest in just about anything, be it Motorsports, Pokemon, Wrestling, Gaming and also some general things. This one however might have come at the worst possible time.
Yes I know what's going on with the world at the moment with the Covid-19 pandemic which means all of us are most likely stuck at home under quarantine trying to avoid contacting this virus. So what do I really miss doing? Travelling around and using my camera and taking photographs, which was something I picked up back in 2011. Sadly when the pandemic is over, I won't be able to go "trigger happy" with my photos as my camera was spoiled by some dumbass renovation workers last year so thanks for that.
So I thought why not share my favourite 30 pictures I've taken from my Nikon D5100 camera. It'll be mostly on F1 as I got my camera primarily to use in these races anyway but I've had some fun exploring the world and using it as well.
Just a random shot but it shows how different things are for me when I was in Calgary compared to being in high rise buildings all around back home in Singapore.
#29 - Sunset + Clouds = Awesome - Elk Grove, California, United States of America
This just came out too nicely while I was just messing around with my camera at my cousin's house, I couldn't believe I managed to get that!
#28 You know this place - Akihabara, Tokyo, Japan
Akihabra, what a place. You just have to visit it to know what I love it there.
#27 Brake!!! - 2014 Australian Grand Prix - Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
#26 - Stay Classy - Sacramento, California, United States of America
I just like the classic stuff and the plate saying "Clasy", it sure is staying classy! One of my better pictures taken from my USA adventures.
#25 - Fireworks! National Day Parade - Singapore
Well, look at it!
#24 Flying kick? - Singapore
Took this at a random football match the one time I went to see my hometown team, Balestier Khalsa play and somehow managed to get this on camera! Talk about perfect timing.
#23 Best fans! - 2018 Singapore Grand Prix - Singapore
The one cool thing about watching these races is at the end, usually the winning driver will wave to the crowd as he drives past them during his "victory lap" and I've not had much luck capturing these moments so this is the best one I got from Lewis Hamilton.
#22 Wallpaper shot! - San Francisco, California, USA
For the longest time I had this bit of the Bay Bridge as my header picture and a wall paper because it came out so nicely!
#21 Statue of Liberty but I'm not in NY - Odiaba, Tokyo, Japan
Yup, you can see the Statue of Liberty even if you're not in New York! Something about seeing this here in Odiaba always cracks me up.
#20 Suit up! - 2014 Singapore Grand Prix
Just a random shot but this was just perfectly timed!
#19 The Birdman flies - 2014 Australian Grand Prix - Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
It was cool to see the legend himself Tony Hawk doing his stunts live in person while roaming around during my second visit to the Australian Grand Prix. Lucky me!
#18 Flinders St Station - Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
This place just looks amazing. Everytime I drop by Melbourne, I always find myself trying to take a picture of Flinders St station. I don't know why but it looks majestic enough for me to try.
#17 The Yes Man cometh! - Singapore
It's always cool to see a WWE superstar live in person especially someone I liked, and here it was Daniel Bryan. I got to meet him too and got him to sign his book I had bought a few months back.
#16 Quite the overview - 2013 Malaysian Grand Prix - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
The one thing I do like about the Malaysian Grand Prix when it was still hosting F1 races was the vast amount of opportunities to take clean pictures of these cars without barriers in the way. But this was one of my favourites, having an overview of half the circuit!
#15 Roll out! - 2017 Malaysian Grand Prix - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
The other good thing about the Malaysian Grand Prix? You can get a nice view of the cars in their pit-stall in pitlane and getting cool pictures like these. Side note, this just happened to be Pierre Gasly's F1 debut as well.
#14 Majulah Singapura - Singapore
It's just the Singapore flag but it came out way too perfectly!
#13 The Champ is here! - Singapore
I've gotten to watch a number of wrestling events over the years and usually it's only New Japan where I get the chance to use my camera and this was one of my better shots of getting a wrestler during their entrance. Not just any wrestler, but some consider the best in the world, the IWGP World Champion (at that time), Kazuchika Okada!
#12 Champagne!!! - 2013 Singapore Grand Prix - Singapore
Another instant of just right place at the right time. I've gotten to see the podium celebration up close a few times, mostly in Singapore but also once in Australia and it's always cool to see the drivers right after the race celebrating a race win or a good result.
#11 On the starting grid! - 2014 Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma - Sonoma Valley, California, USA
This was a really cool experience. Before then, I never got the chance to actually step foot on the starting grid minutes before the race actually happened so to be there for once, it was an amazing experience. Just to see how all the teams prepare before they went to battle was something I never thought I'd get the chance to see.
#10 The race winning move! - 2017 Malaysian Grand Prix - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
I've been lucky enough to take pictures of drivers overtaking each other but this one takes the cake easily. Max Verstappen waited just 3 laps to overtake Lewis Hamilton for the race lead and he went on to win the race so that was a nice moment to catch on camera. And a good birthday present for Max who turned 20 the day before!
#9 Rock 'N Roll Star - 2012 Singapore Grand Prix - Singapore
Thanks to the Singapore GP, I've gotten to see some of the biggest names in music doing their gigs during the race weekend but nothing will beat having seen both Liam Gallagher and Noel Gallagher live in action. Oasis will forever be my favourite musical group and getting the chance to listen to these two living legends in person was awesome. I need to go to their concerts proper next time!
#8 Briscoe Wins! - 2012 Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma - Sonoma Valley, California, USA
Not many people may know this but the reason I got interested in watching IndyCar was actually because of Ryan Briscoe who joined the series in 2005. I had been following his career for a while, tuned in to see IndyCar for the first time and I've been hooked onto the series ever since.
So just imagine me, travelling all the way to Sonoma to finally watch an IndyCar race for the first time and seeing my favourite driver win the event! Best feeling in the world. Sadly it would wound up being his last win in IndyCar but at least I can say I was there to witness it live!
#7 Suzuka Ichiban - 2015 Japanese Grand Prix - Suzuka, Nagoya, Japan
I've been to five racing circuits in the world and Suzuka is easily my favourite. The track is amazing for the drivers but qually as amazing for fans to watch in person! Great views all around the circuit so I had a blast snapping loads of pictures during that weekend in Nagoya.
#6 Applauding the man! - 2014 Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma - Sonoma Valley, California, USA
This was another case of right place, right time. I was trying to get a picture of Scott Dixon on his final lap before winning the Indy GP of Sonoma and realised someone wearing his merch was standing up and I thought, this would be cool if I could get him in. And it came out way better than I could have ever imagined!
#5 The Best in the World - Wrestle Kingdom 12 - Tokyo Dome, Japan
I've tried taking pictures of wrestling doing their moves before but it usually never comes off well. Except this one. I flew to Japan just to watch this match, Kenny Omega vs one of my all time favourites in Chris Jericho. And this was one of the best matches I've seen live.
#4 There he goes! - 2015 Malaysian Grand Prix - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Simply the perfect example of being at the right place at the right time. Sometimes you just need to be lucky in where you sit to find the action happening. I knew stuff would happen in Turn 1 so I chose to get seats there and lucky me, I got to see Marcus Ericsson spin off at Turn 1 while I was focusing on him to get pictures. Just my luck.
#3 Golden Gate Bridge - San Francisco, California, United States of America
You know this place, you've seen it many times before. So it was cool to get a picture of it from my camera and it came out quite nicely.
#2 12 Apostles - Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
The 12 Apostles was one of the best things I saw during my first trip to Melbourne, something about this place just made me appreciate the world as a whole. And the picture came out perfectly. We still need to take care of our world as it shows here, it's slowly starting to crumble.
#1 Verstappen is out! - 2015 Japanese Grand Prix - Suzuka, Nagoya, Japan
You can't predict this stuff. The right place, the right spot, the right time. As a racing fan, I don't ever see drivers stopping their cars whenever there is a problem still on track so this was a rare sight for many fans. But lucky me, Max Verstappen stopped his car right in front of me so I got this golden shot of him jumping out of his car. I don't think I'll get lucky enough to get a picture quite like this.
Well, I could have had I focused on my camera for a few seconds 15 minutes later as this happened...
I was using the car in front of Daniil Kvyat as practice for when I wanted to start taking pictures again and I noticed he was running wide....and then he went off and did a barrel roll! I was a bit too slow to taking a picture of anything as I was just stunned at what I was seeing but I managed to catch the last bits of it on video. If only I caught that in pictures, that would have been something.
Thanks for reading my lists! My next one won't take as long as this one hopefully.
Darkness Ablaze time and this time I'll do this a bit differently, it'll be more of just a recap of things that happened with stuff I tried, things I did, what worked and what didn't. It may or may not turn out that way since I tend to add more stuff after finding ideas for it. Most of the focus will be on Centiskorch VMAX since it was my most successful deck during this format. I will share what I did with the other decks as well.
Topics
1. 2020-2021 Rotation
2. The Journey
Week 1 & 2 - Testing
Week 3 - Sunday Open Win
Week 4 - Hegster Win
Week 5 - Hegster Top 4 Finish
Week 6 - Two Top 4 Finish in Three Days (Hegster and Sunday Open)
Week 7 & 8 - Top 16 Limitless Weekly two weeks in a Row (Perfecting the list)
Week 9 - PokeGear Version
Week 10 - Still messing around
Week 11 - Finals of Gazerbeam's Tourney of Dreams
3. The List
4. Matchups and stats
5. Next format thoughts
6. The other decks I played and stats
2020-2021 Rotation
Early impression from looking at the set was that obviously, Eternatus VMAX would be insane so I completely ignored it right away (it also meant I had to put Dragapult away) since I always try to work on a deck that's no considered the best. We were also in the middle of the 2020-2021 rotation so I had a few things factored in my mind:
Goodbye Malamar
Electropower/Thunder Mountain gone so PikaRom is worse now?
Escape Board gone, is Jirachi still good enough to help with consistency?
Heat Factory, Blacephalon GX and Victini Prism all gone. Any like-for-like replacements?
Does ADPZ even lose anything?
Shrine/Doom Count Yveltal gone, some rogue ideas are gone
Magcargo-GX and Solgaleo-GX gone, can Mew3 Welder survive without these two?
Energy Recycler gone. RIP the Charizard TEU dream.
Ditto Prism and Zebstrika gone, less tech options
Oranguru gone, is Control finally dead? Haha, problably not
So early impressions for me was that ADPZ was still the thing to beat but I had plenty of reasons to continue working on decks like Centiskorch, Mew3 Welder, Blacephalon (yes, I'm a Welder fan), Inteleon VMAX now that PikaRom was gone and maybe even try out this Eternatus thing if I was bored of the rest.
Before the new rotation came into works, I had already given Centiskorch a trial run and it was working really nicely. I made top 16 cut in the Epoch DAA Contest, 10th in Tag Bolt and even won the Yoshi Cup with it, which I think started giving many people the idea that the deck was actually good. I really should have played it for the POG World Championships, that was my one big regret out of that format.
Right away, I knew I had to find replacements for Escape Board, Blacephalon-GX and Heat Factory Prism but the deck wasn't going to lose much thankfully. I was toying around the idea of two Eldegoss in the deck even before the rotation and really liked it. Same for two Fire Crystal which stayed in the deck for the most part of this rotation. Bird Keeper was lost in the shuffle initially but has found it's way back very late on.
Week 1 & 2 - Testing
I had already sent my mind to playing ADPZ for the JGB Annual Championships, it was the safe pic in a field full of amazing players so I didn't want to bring something not fully tested, which was the case for Centiskorch. First run with it was Hegster S2 Top Deck 4, a decent 5-3 score but bubbling out of points at 33rd out of 126 people which is always frustrating. The first version I went with was the PokeGear version, thinking it'd be the most consistent way to get things done.
Straight away I wasn't a fan of Marnie. 5 support Pokemon also felt a bit much. I was missing Fire Crystal but I wanted to see how the deck could do without it.
For Tag Bolt S2 #8, I wanted to see how a tankier build of Centiskorch would work so I went with this:
It didn't work as well as I wanted it to. Heat Energy felt unnecessary and Big Charm always showed up at the wrong time so I was already turned off by the tankier built. I went 4-3 in the event. Most of my losses at this stage was to Mew3 Welder and Eternatus so the Heat, Charm, Mallow Lana combo was not working at all.
Week 3 - Sunday Open Win
While watching top cut of said Atlas Mini 1, the one deck that caught my interest was the genius himself, Alex Schemanske with his Scoop Up Net build of Centiskorch. It looked great as it finally fixed some of the matchups I thought I was having trouble with so right away, I abandoned ship on my other build to give this one a test run.
I played his exact 60 in the D52 Bombers Cup, finishing 1st in swiss rounds at 4/0/2 before losing to ADPZ in top cut due to bad hands at the start. I fell in love with the deck right away, it was fun to play and it felt like the abosoulte best way to play Centiskorch. The nets with Goons made things like Blowns, Eternatus and Deci Goon even better and Giratina just gave me outs to beating LucMet and Deci Goon.
I had planned to give that version a try for the Sunday Open but before that, I went in with a fun version of Centiskorch with Oranguru/Mewtwo in place of Eldegoss/Crobat in an effort to stop giving ADPZ free prize for the very first Limitless tourney on their brand new site, which is where all the events are now using to run these tourneys. I ended up winning it somehow, my first win of the format, I'll take it!
Then came the return of the Sunday Open. 10 swiss rounds which was really tiring and somehow I ended up 1st in swiss at 9-1, only losing to Greens PikaRom due to brick hands. I was able to beat the decks that had troubled me in the past, that being Mew3 Welder and Eternatus thanks to the new changes. I beat Deci Goon 2-0 in Top 8, Greens PikaRom 2-1 in Top 4 and finally the mirror match 2-1 in finals to get my first Sunday Open win and my first online tournament win featuring 100+ players!
Also, it was two tournament wins on the same day, that's quite a rare feat I'd say!
The changes I made from Alex's list was having 2nd Eldegoss in place of 2nd Dedenne. The 2nd Eldegoss was a gimmick I managed to make work in the previous format, giving me a win in the Yoshi Cup and it worked really nicely here too. 3rd boss was another change I made which felt necessary and made the deck even better. 2 stamps worked like a charm. The only thing I felt that was missing was a straight answer to Zamazenta.
The week proper started off with a 5-3 score in Hegster S2 Top Deck 10 but only good enough for 46th out of 173 people (it should have been Top 32 but my opponent was being an arsehole and decided to go into action for himself and of course he sacked me), the only change was cutting Mallow & Lana for second Dedenne. Even with the added draw power I still lost two games due to slow starts.
Ended the week off with PokeX's Last Chance Qualifier, I needed just a top 32 finish to get me into the Invitational and I ended up finishing 6th with a score of 4/0/2 in swiss, missing a straight auto-qualification into day 2 by 5 points. The only change I made from previous list was to cut the 2nd Eldegoss for Heatran-GX as the counter for Zamazenta and it worked beautifully even in other games. This was where I was convinced Heatran was an auto-include, it would end up being my go-to person in matches against ADPZ.
Week 4 - Hegster Win
I started to play around with different counts, wanting to see how PokeGear would help with consistency and so I brought it along for Hegster S2 Top Deck 12 along with the new addition of one Marnie in place of 2nd Stamp just to see how it'd work.
And it worked really well, I ended up winning the whole event! I went 6/1/1 in Swiss, beating ADPZ and Eternatus in Top 8 and 4 respectively, two of my more trickier matchups before beating Deci Goon, one of my easier matchups but I made it harder for myself with some misplays. I left Heatran and Giratina out to test the new changes out and even though I liked it, I still felt as though I was missing both of those options.
And that was as good as it got for me honestly! Thanks for reading!
All kidding aside, it's sad to know that those three tourney wins (Limitless Test, Sunday Open and Hegster) with Centiskroch would be 3 of only 4 tourney wins for me throughout this format (the other being with Eternatus). I really thought I hit the jackpot finding my comfort deck early and I could finally call something for my own but it just wasn't to be. Sure I did get more good results later on but just never got a 5th tourney win with Centiskorch.
Went from a 1-2 start to a 5-2 finish at Chill a few days later and this is where I knew I had to get Giratina back in as one of my lost were to LucMet and I had no outs of getting around the Weakness Guard energy and no, Radiating Heat is not the best idea in that match. At least Heatran came in handy vs Zamazenta here. Having Tina and Heatran did help me get a top 16 finish at the very next Hegster event, so I was right to have them back in.
Later on in the week I came close to making it a 5th win but I lost in the finals of a Japanese tourney called the Jal Cup. I tested Ordinary Rod out in place of 2nd Crystal to see the interaction with it and stuff like Heatran, Eldegoss or Dedenne and it worked nicely, I managed to beat a LucMet relying just on Zamazenta because of it. Sadly I dead drew in the finals vs ADPZ.
Week 5 - Hegster Top 4 Finish
Started the week off with my 3rd straight top cut appearance at the Hegster Top Deck series, finishing 3rd out of 115 players. I made some changes, going back to two Dedenne, cutting Gears, adding Marnie, going back to two Crystals and testing out 4 Comms to see if it helps to solve the issue of whiffing the VMAX evolution that cost me a coupe of wins days prior. It did it's job but I wasn't too convinced by it.
Also during this tourney I was convinced 2nd Stamp is far better than a 1-1 split of Stamp/Marnie as I had to rely on it just to ruin my opponent's hand while I was stuck as well. Ended up 6/1/1 in swiss, beating LucMet in Top 8 before losing to PikaRom in Top 4 who never missed flipping heads on Crushing Hammers, even knocking all 3 of my energies out at one points after a Flare Starter.
Later on in the week for Chill Series, I started testing Reshiram & Charizard-GX in place of Heatran-GX just to see how much better or worse it would do and in it's first match, it took all six prizes vs PikaRom so that went well. Only finished 4-3 in that tourney sadly. I also tested Zangoose in another tourney to see if it would help vs Eternatus and sadly never had the chance to find out.
It was also during this time where a few others started taking my list to try out for themselves and the first big winner was my guy Edward Valencia, he won the first Limitless Online Series Weekly with 59 cards of what I used in Chill, with Heatran in place of ReshiZard. So that made me really happy!
A day later, I would bubble out of a top 8 finish in the first event of the 3rd season of PokeX. I gave Mallow and Lana another try in the hopes that it'd help get around Raichu's paralysis trick that kept making me lose and well....it just never did that for me.
Week 6 - Two Top 4 Finish in Three Days (Hegster and Sunday Open)
At some point during the week, I gave Tord Reklev's version of Centiskorch a try with Greens and Magneton and I just wasn't a big fan of it, 5-7 in two tourneys.
Went back to the normal list for Hegster S2 Top Deck 17, finish swiss with a 6-1 record (might have been 1st in swiss too), beating ADPZ in Top 8 before misplaying to the legend himself Azul Garcia Griego in top 4. I was satisfied with this list but something felt missing. I wasn't sure if 4th comm wasn't needed.
Played the same list for Jonno Cup but had no luck in that and that was also the first event where after 11 mirror matches, I finally lost to one but that was more due to me having a dead hand.
For the Sunday Open, I kept the same list from Hegster with the only change being ReshiZard coming in place of Heatran to see how it'd deal with the ADPZ/PikaRom matchups and it seemed to do alright too, got me the win over ADPZ twice but I did feel that Heatran was probably better for other matchups plus it only gave up one prize. Ended swiss 5/0/1, beating ADPZ in Top 8 then losing to Mew3 Welder in top 4, I was put in a no win situation.
Week 7 & 8 - Top 16 Limitless Weekly two weeks in a Row (Perfecting the list)
The Hegster invitational didn't go so well, winning the first round against ADPZ was the only good thing for me. I ended up losing the next two rounds but I liked how the deck was working with the newest addition of Great Catcher. The whole idea of it was me always finding myself in the middle of either needing Welder to power up or Boss to gust someone up in the PikaRom matchup. And then it hit me, why not Great Catcher so I can use both of them?
I kept messing around with ReshiZard for the Limitless WOS #3 and the deck worked really well, got me a 6/2/0 score, 16th out of 178 players which is not bad. Of course I knew right away ReshiZard should be Heatran, Marnie should be 2nd Stamp and one less Energy taken out so Giratina would be back in. That list for me would probably be the ideal Centiskorch list going forward and sure enough, it was! Augusto Beringuer won the PokeX Challenge the next day with those changes so my thinking was on the right path, except he went with one Fire Crystal and 12 energies.
Now with the list set, it was time to give it a run at Sunday Open, I ended up 5/2/0, 14th out of 80 players, both losses were down to just bad luck, missing two important cards out of a 9 card deck from Dede draw and getting donked but the deck was working perfectly.
The core idea of the list almost won 3 tourneys in a row, Liam won Sunday Open with it and Vini came 2nd for E & D's qualifier. So we were on the right path now.
While I was happy with the list, I still couldn't shake off the Lum Berry idea off my mind so I gave it a try for Chrollo #7 and got all the way to the finals with it before losing to Poison Eternatus. The Lum Berry did help me win the second game of the series but only having 2 of them in deck, they just never showed up at the right time and it was only useful against those two decks.
Just for the heck of it, I thought "why not let's run Lum Berry again" for the next Limitless WOS. And it didn't hinder me at all, going 6/2/0 for the second week in a row! 15th out of 143 people with a suboptimal version of Centiskorch sure was funny but also nice. But I knew the Lum Berry idea just wasn't cutting it. I'd rather just take the loss to Poison Eternatus and improve my matches agaisnt everything else. Lum Berry did scare the PikaRom players enough for them to make sub-optimal plays so that was nice.
I went back to the ideal list for Perfection 1 of the 3rd season of PokeX, losing my last round to Eternatus to miss out on a top 16 finish. This was also the tourney I missed Lum Berry the most as I got paired with the combination of Poison Eternatus and PikaRom in 5 of my 8 rounds. Ended up 5-3 in the event which was nice as it was a best of 3 series in swiss but I stayed up till 6.30am so that wasn't good.
Week 9 - PokeGear Version
Went on a bit of a mixed run after that, losing win and in games in 6 tournaments in a row before bombing out of Hegster Top Deck 2 of the 3rd season. I started playing around with the PokeGear version of the list my friend Thomas Brophy had been doing alright with, wanting to see if it was any better but I just wasn't convinced as it made my LucMet matchup way worse.
I started playing around the idea of Ordinary Rod and Marshadow to see if that would help to beat out the decks using two Chaotic Swell and sure enough, I never played against a deck using just that so I never got to see how it'd work. More testing followed with that combo but I ended up using Ordinary Rod more to get Eldegoss/Heatran/Dedenne back and I still prefered having two Fire Crystal in hand in case of Swell.
Week 10 - Still messing around
I started the week off playing in my first E & D event for their LCQ, going 5/0/2 after swiss rounds before messing up against Blowns in top 8. Had I played well, I had a real shot of winning it as all the matchups were in my favour so that was a real big missed opportunity. I did try out Ninetales V in the Net version just to see how it'd do vs ADPZ and things like Zamazenta and ChuChu, and it worked nicely to be fair. Shame I don't have the space to have two Fire tech attackers in the list.
Week 11 - Finals of Gazerbeam's Tourney of Dreams
And here we go, the last time I'll get to play Centiskorch in this TEU-DAA format and it was Gazerbeam's Tourney of Dreams, a double elimination tourney best of 1 format. I went with the Gear version thinking it'll be better suited for best of 3 not realizing it was actually best of 1! Deck ran smoothly but of course I lost to LDF and his Mad Party deck in winner's finals and grand finals.
The main new addition (or re-inclusion) was getting Bird Keeper back into the deck for an easier way to get out of Paralysis and getting Heatran into action. So it's funny how I started the format off with Bird Keeper, didn't play it until the last week of the format itself but I always did like the card.
So that's how the journey with Centiskorch went, just 3 tournament wins out of the 49 I took part in (yes I play too much). 9 Top 4 finishes, 11 Top 8 finishes, 25 Top 16 finishes. So half of my tourneys ended with me inside top 16 so I'm quite happy with that, shows that I'm making some improvements to keep putting myself in a good spot at these events when say a year ago, I'd be struggling to make top 16.
The List
Going into the next format, my Centiskorch list will be based off this. I don't really see many changes needed since the deck doesn't really gain anything new from the set. So let's start with the 100% for sure must haves:
- Must Have (49) -
x3 Centiskorch V
x3 Centiskorch VMAX
x3 Volcanion
x2 Dedenne-GX
x1 Eldegoss V
x1 Crobat V
x1 Giratina
x4 Welder
x11 Fire Energy
x1 Fire Crystal
x3 Giant Hearth
x2 Boss's Orders
x1 Great Catcher
x4 Quick Ball
x3 Pokemon Communication
x1 Professor's Research
x1 Reset Stamp
x4 Switch
All these are self explanatory. 3-3 line of Centiskorch is usually enough to get the job done. Those 4 support Pokemon I feel will be a must going into the next format, especially Giratina.
11 Fire Energy feels just enough to get everything you need. 3 Gust options is the best way to go about it. 7 ball search may not sound like enough but it's been doing alright for me, if you can find a space for a 4th comm that would be even more helpful. The lone Research can come in very handy in very niche situations. So that's 46 cards sorted, all you need to do is figure the rest of the 11 cards and that usuall depends on which version of Turbo Skorch you prefer and also for some card counts.
- Scoop Net Options -
x4 Scoop Up Net
x2 Jirachi
x1 Zigzagoon
If you're going for the Scoop Up Net version, these are the additional must haves. Goon only helps in small situations but when you need it, it tends to be a game changer. Jirachi is a nice pivot to have at times and because of it, sometimes I like having a Bird Keeper in the deck to make full use of it. So that's 56 cards and the last three are up to personal preference:
- Tech Options -
- Either 2nd Fire Crystal or 12 Fire Energy
- Either 2 Stamps or 1 Marnie
- Either Cramorant or Dubwool as your non-Fire attacker
- Either Heatran-GX, Reshiram & Charizard-GX, Ninetales V or 4th Centiskorch V
I personally prefer having 11 Fire and 2 Crystal as it helps me have an out to Swell. As for hand disruption, I've grown to prefer 2 stamps as using a supporter to do that doesn't really suit this deck in particular. As for the colourless option, I'd rather go with Cramorant as the snipe option can come in handy in many situations, even in the mirror match or against unfavoured matchups like Inteleon VMAX.
And the last backup attacking choice, I've come to the conclusion that Heatran just offers so much more over the other 3 choices.
Heatran can help you get donk wins out of nowhere. Heatran is also extremely useful in the ADPZ matchup and dealing with Zamazenta. Also can hit 350 for 7 energies, more than Centiskorch funnily enough who only does 320 with the same amount.
ReshiZard can tank a hit and the thing going for it is that it does deal with support Pokemon easier than the rest, but so does Centiskorch VMAX. Giving up 3 prizes for lesser HP than Skorch doesn't feel that good.
Ninetales I've found to be extremly useful in the ADPZ matchup and also the LucMetZ matchup. It can also copy Tandem Shock to give your opponent's ChuChu a piece of their own medicine.
4th Centiskorch just to make sure you start with it.
However, if you prefer the Gears version
- Gear Options -
x4 PokeGear
x1 Crobat V or Eldegoss V
x1 Marshadow
x1 Ordinary Rod or Volcanion
PokeGear is self explanatory. Crobat gives you extra draw power but Eldegoss gives you another option for a 5th/6th Welder or 3rd/4th Boss and I've always liked having two Eldegoss in Centiskorch anyway. Marshadow is there just to deal with Choatic Swell. And for the last spot, personal choice, either go for the 4th Volcanion to maximise your Flare Starter odds or the recovery choice of Ordinary Rod.
Matchups and stats
So here's some fun stats part, I'll share how I did against the main decks of the format and instead of giving a guess on how the matchup would go, I'll give actual facts on how it went for me in those matchups.
vs Arceus & Dialga & Palkia-GX/Zacian V (55 games played, won 33 = 60% win rate)
I did always think Centiskorch was always slight favored vs ADPZ. You had so many options to take all six prizes. If you're able to knock out their ADPZ Turn 2, you're winning 90% of the time. And you have various options to get there. Turn 1 Flare Starter + Welder onto Centiskorch or a Turn 1 Welder onto Heatran to hit the ADP twice. Sometimes you might even get lucky to knock out their Zacians right away. This is also the one matchup that Ninetales V truly shines, if you decide to play it.
But it's not always a give that you'll win. You are quite reliant on Dedenne/Crobat if you have a bad start and one awfully timed Mawile can lose you the game. Sometimes they can even win just from you bricking which probably controubled to 20% of my losses.
vs Eternatus non Poison variant (33 games played, won 19 = 57% win rate)
This one is a close matchup as you need the perfect set-up to firstly take down their first Eternatus VMAX and then be able to tank a hit from the next one to take it down as well. This is one of the matchups where Goon/Nets shines the most. Cramorant tends to be very helpful here too.
vs Pikachu & Zekrom-GX (27 games played, won 12 = 44% win rate)
This matchup, if anything, is slightly favoured to the Peeks as they have various options to lose you the game, either through stupid hammer luck, or the usual stamp to 1-2 and paralyze you out of the game. I never did get a lot of luck in this matchup. Also you need to go 2nd to really stand a chance of winning.
vs Centiskorch VMAX (27 games played, won 21 = 78% win rate)
Now this one is probably the most surprising of the whole lot. It's a mirror match, so it should be 50-50 but I've been able to get the best out of the mirror match many times, especially when I'm forced to go first. In fact I started the format of with an 11 match winning streak in the mirror matches. Unlike ADPZ mirror matches, this one tends to be more interesting. You won't try to aimlessly attack into them until the right time shows up.
vs Lucario & Melmetal-GX/Zacian V (22 games played, won 19 = 86% win rate)
One of your better matchups and the win rate shows. I'm not saying it's a 100% for sure win as weird things can happen as evident from my 3 losses. My losses to this deck was mainly down to losing a Skorch to a Turn 2 fully powered Zacian V + Boss or not having a way to get around Weakness Guard. Heatran-GX made this matchup even better for our side. I've even won 2 games against this with the combination of Heatran-GX and Ordinary Rod. This is also the only match where if possible, I'd choose to go first.
vs Mewtwo & Mew-GX/Welder Toolbox (24 games played, won 15 = 62.5% win rate)
This one is a tricky one as it should be 50-50, Mew3 has various of ways to beat Centiskorch but they always do seem to miss some tricks to get there which is probably why I won more times than I lost. You do need to be mindful of Indeedee V showing up out of nowhere or the usual Nasty Goo-GX trick so not spamming Switches is vital.
vs Blacephalon UNB (15 games played, won 10 = 67% win rate)
This one is a little surprising as I honestly believe Blacephalon UNB is favoured in this matchup as it can easily get those huge KOs. Them depending a lot on their support Pokemon does help give us free targets and that's how I kept beating them I suppose. If it was a 33% win rate, I wouldn't be surprised.
vs Poison Eternatus (9 games played, won 2 = 22% win rate)
Yup, this one is just terrible. There's really not much you can do but hope and pray. Your only realistic hope is knocking our their Eternatus VMAX on your 2nd turn with 8 energies on your VMAX and try to survive the next attack. The problem is their Poison trick is a bit too much to handle.
vs Decidueye/Obstagoon (8 games played, won 8 = 100% win rate)
Normally, I don't like to say a match-up is an auto-win since anything can happen, you could have the worst start possible and lose. But yeah this is an auto-win. Their tricks won't affect you if you play correctly, using your Volcanions and Centiskorch at the right time.
vs Green's Reshiram & Charizard (8 games played, won 4 = 50% win rate)
50-50 matchup and the score proves it. For this, whoever goes 2nd pretty much wins. If you can get your VMAX running quickly, you just run over them. If not, they just run over you easily.
Next Format
Right now, I still don't have a clue on what will do well in the next format or not but one thing is for sure, I will still be doing my best to keep making Centiskorch as good as it can be. With LucMet/Zacian projected to jump into Tier 1, that gives us one really good matchup. ADPZ will still be around, so make it two. Jury is still out on the Coalossal matchup but I do hope it scares away the PikaRoms and Eternatus, two of our worst matchups.
As for new additions, I'll be testing out the new Talonflame V out for sure just to see if it's worth having the new hand after Turn 1. Typically, if I have to go first, I'd rather have my first energy on my Centiskorch V to build up a possibly 200 hit for turn 2 so that is already conflicting with some of my game plans. Ninetales V is an interesting choice with many new interesting attacks to take advantage of.
No new cards really catches my eye as things needed to add into the deck but 100%, Giratina will be good. I might even want to test two of them. I'll likely stick to the Scoop Up Net version since it's working well for me.
Other Decks I Played
I didn't just play Centiskorch the whole way though. I knew that if I wanted to really improve, I needed to get used to playing all sorts of decks and try to get decent results with most of them. The ones I refused to play were decks with Crushing Hammer as I'm not a fan of that card and I don't want to rely on luck to win games and also Control decks, it's just not for me.
Arceus & Dialga & Palkia-GX/Zacian V
9 Events
38 Wins/23 Losses/3 Ties - 59% Win Rate
0 Wins
0 Top 4 Finish
1 Top 8 Finish
4 Top 16 Finish
Average Placement - 26.89%
Best Finishes:
Atlas DAA Monthly 1 - 10th/94
Epoch Tuesday Cup 1 - 7th/38
Hegster S3 Top Deck 4 - 14th/123
Eternatus VMAX
11 Events
41 Wins/30 Losses/2 Ties - 56% Win Rate
1 Win
1 Top 4 Finish
2 Top 8 Finish
5 Top 16 Finish
Average Placement - 39.18%
Best Finishes:
Atlas DAA Mini 11 - 1st/52
Coffee Cup #2 - 5th/16
Prof Oak Paradise S2 Tourney #7 - 9th/39
Mewtwo & Mew-GX/Welder Toolbox
10 Events
38 Wins/30 Losses/0 Ties - 53% Win Rate
0 Wins
0 Top 4 Finish
2 Top 8 Finish
3 Top 16 Finish
Average Placement - 35.2%
Best Finishes:
Atlas DAA Mini 12 - 7th/60
Atlas DAA Mini 1 - 8th/69
Yoshi Cup 15 - 9th/18
Mewtwo & Mew-GX/Lighting Toolbox
2 Events
9 Wins/5 Losses/0 Ties - 64% Win Rate
0 Wins
0 Top 4 Finish
0 Top 8 Finish
0 Top 16 Finish
Average Placement - 23.3%
Best Finishes:
Chill TCG Series #10 - 18th/121
Blacephalon UNB
2 Events
6 Wins/8 Losses/0 Ties - 42% Win Rate
0 Wins
0 Top 4 Finish
0 Top 8 Finish
0 Top 16 Finish
Average Placement - 39.87%
Best Finishes:
Atlas DAA Mini 5 - 30th/75
Pikachu & Zekrom-GX
2 Events
8 Wins/7 Losses/0 Ties - 53% Win Rate
0 Wins
0 Top 4 Finish
0 Top 8 Finish
0 Top 16 Finish
Average Placement - 34%
Best Finishes:
Chrollo Tourney #10 - 21st/73
Lucario & Melmetal-GX
3 Events
10 Wins/9 Losses/0 Ties - 52% Win Rate
0 Wins
0 Top 4 Finish
1 Top 8 Finish
1 Top 16 Finish
Average Placement - 39.87%
Best Finishes:
9outofBen DAA League - 6th/11
Others:
Excadrill (1 Event) - 3/4/0
Dragapult (1 Event) - 0/2/0
Deci/Goon (1 Event) - 0/2/0
Fire Box (1 Event) - 1/2/0
Green's Centi (2 Events) - 5/7/0
Inteleon (1 Event) - 3/3/0
Charizard VMAX (1 Event) - 0/2/0
And of course, the stats for the main deck:
Centiskorch VMAX
49 Events
209 Wins/120 Losses/13 Ties - 61%
3 Wins
9 Top 4 Finish
11 Top 8 Finish
26 Top 16 Finish
Average Placement - 27.3%
Best Finishes:
Limitless Test Tourney 1 - 1st/17
Sunday Open (14th Sep) - 1st/139
Hegster S2 Top Deck 12 - 1st/160
So yup, I can only do well with Centiskorch apparently but I did get some good results with the likes of Mew3 Welder, ADPZ and of course, that rare one-off tourney win with Eternatus. Hopefully I can add to these tourney wins with the new upcoming format. Thank you for reading and I hope you have a great day!
Since I'm turning 30 this year, I thought why not create a few Top 30 lists of things that I like or have done so I've done a few list that covers my interest in just about anything, be it Motorsports, Pokemon, Wrestling, Gaming and also some general things.
Most of you reading this probably know me from playing the Pokemon Trading Card Game (most likely from these online events too) and hearing about these tourney graphic reports I share with the rest or the stuff I do for Pokestats but that's not all I've done in the game. Ok, I've not really done much, there's still more to do but I've only gotten back into the game. It's been 4 years since I went to the Evolutions Pre-Release and it's been fun the whole way ever since.
Sure the current pandemic means most are taking a break but not me, I have to keep training, keep improving, keep playing, all to better myself so when IRL games are back, I can be fighting for wins in big tournaments. But how about a little stroll down memory lane for today, most of these aren't really ranked, just wanted to share 30 moments I've had from the game, (the top 10 and the first few ones are the only one ranked).
#30 - The Start
The game released back in 1998 and I was already into Pokemon from the first Gen, playing Red/Blue, watching the anime so of course when I found out there were cards, I just had to get them too. Gotta collect them all right?
And of course, one of my first holo cards was the Hitmonlee from Fossil set and if you don't know, Hitmonlee is one of my favourite Pokemon of all time. I tried to make a deck out of it and Gengar back then. Still one of my most treasured cards I have with me.
#29 - Addicted to the Game Boy Pokemon Trading Card Game
And to help my obsession with the game, GameBoy released their own version of Pokemon TCG. I played it way too much, I'll be the first to admit it. Sadly it was just the original 3 sets but that was good enough for me since those were the ones I was more interested in anyway. I liked the game so much I've bought it in my Nintendo 3DS and hopefully someday it'll be on the Switch too. I still do plan to play it whenever I feel bored.
#28 - Pulling a Shiny Pokemon!
I preferred playing the game (and still do) but of course the concept of buying single cards was alien to 10-year old Kash so of course I'd keep wasting money on buying packs (mostly Pokemon TCG and WWE Raw Deal). My biggest pull was Shiny Kabutops from Neo Destiny. Pulling a holo foil doesn't often happen but pulling a Shiny was super rare. My friends and I went crazy when I pulled it, we'd never seen a Shiny pokemon card before. I still have it with me!
It was the most rarest card I ever pulled until this happened...
#27 - Interested Again
I stopped playing the game back in 2003 to focus on my studies, not playing or collecting for a good 14 years. Main reason I stopped was because I couldn't find a league or a shop to play with others nor did I have the money to buy the good cards so I didn't feel there was any point to continue.
I did get the bug for the game back around 2014 with the new Pokemon Trading Card Game online, playing it and then forgot about it for a while. Then I visited my brother in Japan. I was still into the Pokemon video game but visiting some shops, I saw Pokemon cards and saw this Mega Charizard EX and thinking to myself, "wow cards sure have changed, they look interesting. Maybe I should get back into this hobby." And I did.
#26 - Back to Buying Cards
Once I got back to Singapore, one of the first few things I did was to check where I could get my hands on Pokemon cards and sure enough, I bought a starter deck to get myself started and a few packs. My brother and I started playing around with our starter decks and we had a lot of fun with it. It became a weekly thing for me to buy 2 packs a week. And then finding boxes to buy, then Elite Trainer Boxes and even more collection boxes. I probably should not have spent so much money on them.
Not sure how but I still have the very first picture of me playing the game with my brother after we both got back into it. I had to buy the Noivern theme deck as it had Gengar in it, since it was one of my favourites.
#25 - First Ever Tournament - Evolutions Pre-Release - 29th October 2016
I came cross one of the websites that were selling the cards advertising this event called a Pre-Release for the new Evolutions set (which also happens to be one of the reasons why I got back into the game, I wanted to collect some of these cards that were re-made from my childhood). This was a fun new experience, and right off the bat I got the Charizard promo which I was really happy about since Charizard is one of my favourites after all.
I went onto YouTube to find out what to expect, got myself some sleeves, some coins, some dices and I was ready. I met a few people there, played some games but mostly had fun. I was hooked onto the game after that and I would not miss a Pre-Release after that until Rebel Clash with the pandemic going around and me not risking my health for games.
#24 - First Real Tournament
From my pre-release, I kept in contact with one of my opponents who I met in the Sun and Moon Pre-Release too. He invited me to join his shop as he was hosting an in house tournament. At this point, I didn't really have a proper deck but I still wanted to know what it would feel like to play in one. At this point, I was fully into playing PTCGO and I had built a few fun decks so of course I went around to look for cards I needed, found a few shops that had it and boom, I was fully into the game now. Things were never the same.
As for the tourney, I didn't expect much since everyone had proper top decks while I had my own Gengar deck that I created, not knowing if it's good or not but it was the only thing I had. I couldn't afford to just go out and buy top decks as I didn't have the budget nor did I have the knowledge of what the top decks were, I didn't have those information unlike the newer players. I did alright considering my lack of experience and having a rouge deck, taking 2 wins out of my 5 games, one of them was me beating the Zygarde EX deck and that dude had been the top seed for most of the day. I was way out of my league but I still had fun, I wanted more!
#23 - First Booster Box
So this was a mistake. Sure I wanted to know what it was like to get a booster box and crack packs too but I've learnt to know that spending $160 hoping to pull good cards is just a waste of money when I can use that money to get exactly what I wanted.
Sun & Moon base set is still one of only two booster boxes I've ever bought, with Sword & Shield base set being the other since it was new and I thought why not. I don't think I'll be buying any more booster boxes, I'm not making enough money to go that route and I'd rather just buy what I need.
#22 - First Tournament Win - Qishan Weekly - 27th October 2017
I started playing in Weekly in house tournament from May onwards and almost exactly one year on from the first time I played Pokemon TCG in any manner in a proper setting, I got my first tournament win. It was just a three round swiss, but it was nice to finally get that 3-0 score after trying so many times. Gardevoir-GX was big during this time so I went with my main deck for that period, Metagross-GX but with a new partner is the newly released Zoroark-GX!
It was cool to win with my own creation as I'm pretty sure Zoroark and Metagross has never been played together but anyone else. My thinking was Metagross always lacked a draw supporter and Zoroark could help in different matches and I wouldn't need DCE too. And it worked, giving me my first ever tournament win. Was nice to finally win one!
#21 - First Big Result - Singapore SPE 2018, 26th out of 74 players - 9th June 2018
At this point, I was still considered a newbie to the game, having played in just one big tourney before this event, that being last year's SPE where I showed up with Yveltal-EX in a Decidueye-GX meta, yup I was way out of my league.
This time around, I had my new favourite deck, Ultra Necrozma-GX with Malamar. And it worked quite nicely, giving me a 4-3 score which I was pretty happy with as I wasn't expecting to get more wins than losses going into the event. Sadly we didn't get 100+ players if not I would have scored my first CP but I was still happy with my best showing to date.
#20 - First Championship Point scored - September League Challenge, 7th out of 24 players - 22nd September 2018
It took me almost 2 years into the game to finally score my first Worlds Championship Points and it came in the first League Challenge of the new 2018-2019 rotation. I had been working on Zygarde-GX mostly leading up to the rotation and felt good going into it.
A 3-2 score was enough to get me my first CP but it could have been better, I should have gone 4-1 but got really unlucky in my last game whiffing the win and the card I needed, as usual, was the very next card I would have drawn into. Didn't feel nice when my opponent started laughing at me after he saw that, because that was a game he didn't need to win since he was a junior and all he did was take away 2 points from me.
#19 - First Final - PokeBeach Monthly Tournament - September 2018, 2nd out of 98 players
A week after getting my first CP, I got into my first finals ever. It was an online event, the old PokeBech Monthly Tournament (which would morph into the JGB series which now has become the Atlas Series), and I was rocking Zygarde-GX again, still with my own creation with interesting techs like Tapu Koko and Magcargo.
It turned out to be an all Zygarde final and I bricked in both games, giving my opponent the easiest of wins. I was still happy to go 5-1-1 in Swiss, one of my best records to date and I was just happy that my own creation could make it into the finals of a brand new rotated format. And hey I got a mention on Pokebeach!
#18 - Collecting Japanese Cards
Yes I was a collector too, not so much these days but if anything, I would rather collect Japanese cards, they just look way better than the ones we get. I have spent a decent amount on singles while I was in Tokyo, including a certain Shiny Charizard-GX because why not? I will continue to collect their cards, and they do tend to get some exclusive rares like this Blue's Tactic with Charmander on it!
Let's not forget, they do tend to get some special reprint sets where you can get two GXes or Ultra Rares in one pack or even sets where an Ultra Rare is a gurantee, now I don't mind spending money for a pack with those odds! Way more fun to collect than the usual English set and it's a lot cheaper too.
#17 - First time winning money from the game - Singapore Pro Circuit Invitational, 4th out of 32 - 22nd December 2018
I had scored a few good results in these Invitationals before but never one where the stakes were this big, with Top 4 guaranteed $50! During this time I was caught in the middle of two Stage 2 decks, Gardevoir-GX with Ninetales-GX and Zoroark-GX/Decidueye-GX with Ninetales-GX.
ZDT was one of the more skillful deck to play so I wanted to challenge myself to get a decent result with it and I went 5/2/0 in Swiss, beating Malamar in Top 8 before losing to BuzzRoc in Top 4 in a game I could have won. Still, winning $50 just from enjoying my hobby of playing Pokemon cards was a nice reward
#16 - Winning Tourneys with a Rouge Deck
Winning tournaments is nice but winning with a rogue deck is just that bit special and that one deck that kept giving me that satisfaction was Charizard TEU. I had played it to two top 8 finishes in Weekly before winning the tournament in my 3rd event with it. The very next day, I repeated that win, going 3-0 with it again!
Charizard TEU is still my all time favourite rouge deck to play. I liked it so much I piloted it to two Top 8 finishes in two different Singapore Pro Circuit invitational, one of them was a Top 4 finish and a semi-final match I should have won but had the worst hand in that game and we had agreed to do just one game and I got donked. I would end up taking 3 tourney wins with it and it was my second most winningest deck of that rotation with 36 wins, one behind Zygarde-GX.
#15 - Joining the PokeStats crew
As someone who is a super stats and number lover, when I saw PokeStats looking for new members to help them out, I had to jump in! Easily the best decision I've made. I've done my part for the crew, so much so people are now knowing me as the Pokestats guy.
The whole gang have made me feel welcomed for someone who is not part of any of their social circles before this. I've learnt a lot about the game from this games too, anytime I needed advice, they were there to offer it. It's not an official team like other pro teams but who needs a team when you have the Stats Gang! I can even say some of these guys are like brothers to me. So to Tate, Luke, Erik, Scott, Christian, Victor, Brian, Alec, Jared, Jeremy, Erin, Bart, Jesper, Kiernan, Will and Carl, thanks for putting up with me and helping this nobody out when no-one else would and when you didn't even need to.
#14 - First Finals in a day-long Tournament (Sunday Open - 5th July 2020, 2nd out of 154 Players)
By this point, I have made finals of tournaments a few times but not in a day-long tournament so this was something new. I had been playing in the British-based Sunday Open for quite some time, joining in on the fun after 3 or 4 weeks in and made two top 8 cuts in my first four events. But I just couldn't make it past top 4 until this event.
This was a long tournament. First we had to do a 6 round swiss in the first phase followed by a 4 round swiss in the second phase for the top 16 in first phase and after that, a top 4 cut. I barely got in at 16th for the first round with a 4-2 record with my Dragapult deck. Second phase went much better, going 3-1, with my last round being against one of the best players in the world in Azul Garcia Griego. Beating him to that top 4 spot felt surreal, my first real big win against a top name.
Top 4 went brilliantly for me and then the finals happened. I got paired against Arceus & Diagla & Palkia-GX/Zacian V which is a good matchup for me as I played no Dedenne-GX or any 2-prize support pokemon. The problem is that he played 4 Crushing Hammers. And he hit all 4 hammers. And to think I still almost beat him with those kind of odds. His last hammer was the final nail in the coffin. My hatred for Crushing Hammer started here.
#13 - 1st place in circuits (Locally and Online)
One thing I might be known for is being that guy who shows up for every tourney, be it locally or online. I just enjoy the game too much to spend most of my time playing in it, even when the format doesn't feel good, especially the current one where ADPZ/Eternatus/Hammers makes it too luck based. But I'm still playing in every tournament possible, mainly to improve myself. I don't have a team or a test group so these tourney games are my version of testing games anyway.
And it's always a reward feeling to see my name near the top of a circuit, be it the Singapore Pro Circuit, the Hegster Season 2 series or even the current PokeStats Online Tourney standings. I'll keep working hard to make sure I'm there purely on merit, I need to learn how to win tournaments now to keep my dream of making it to the World Championship a reality one day. I do like competiton, I'm a natural born racer so I'm always trying to be the first guy across the line, whether I'm good or not, I have to try my best so topping these standings are always a nice feeling.
There was this one time where I finished a circuit in 1st place and it had been set that the person who finished 1st would win a Worlds 2019 Dice Set, which I though was cool but I never really intended to win that but after a few good results, I found myself in 1st place and I just kept grinding until I ended that circuit in 1st with a shiny new dice set from the previous Worlds championship. I still have not opened it up yet!
#12 - Travelling to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for my first Regional - 22nd December 2019
After a long time playing, one of the few things I had not done yet was playing in a Regional and I just could not pass up the chance to play in this one even though the timing was tricky as it was scheduled to happen one day before I flew off for Japan for my New Year's/30th Birthday trip.
It was cool to travel to an event for once, staying in a hotel, self testing and just relaxing for the most part. I made the mistake of thinking I could make my rogue deck work (Charizard TEU) when I should have just gone with the safe choice of Mewtwo & Mew-GX. I went 3-4-2, my four losses being mostly ADP/Keldeo, which I thought was a good matchup but I was completely wrong.
#11 - Featured in "Worlds" POG stream with a Rouge Deck
This one was a really cool moment as I was not expecting this to happen. With the Worlds Championship cancelled, a number of tourney organisers came together to create an online World Championship and of course, I had to get in on the fun! I started the day off 2-1 with my Dragapult VMAX deck, hoping to make my risky meta-call work and sadly it didn't.
But I was featured on stream in Round 4 against my good friend Kyle Vincent Imperial from the Philippines with his own rouge choice of Mewtwo & Mew-GX/Malamar toolbox, for sure a matchup no-one was expecting to see. I got super lucky in the end to top deck the one card I needed to win the game.
#10 - Making New Friends
I'm not kidding but I can't even count how many friends I have made just from being in this new hobby of mine, not just locally but internationally too. After all, the whole idea of playing Pokemon is to meet up with friends and to make new ones too right?
Also, people can say all they want about online tournaments being unimportant, useless and pointless but for me, if it wasn't for these online tournaments, I would not have made the friends I have had in the last few months! It doesn't matter where they're from, locally or international, be it from America, Canada, UK, Brazil, Chile, Phillipines, Iceland, Germany, Norway, Japan and anywhere else you can possibly think of, I've gotten to know so many good people from all around the world, all with the same passion of enjoying Pokemon TCG.
From playing in the PokeBeach tourney to the JGB tourney, the Hegster tourneys, the Sunday Open tourneys, the PokeX tourney and everything else in between, I have made way too many friends than I really should, especially for someone who has always had trouble talking to people or making friends growing up so the lot of you, thank you, it's been fun and let's keep having fun! Here's to meeting new friends and making more in the future, and I really do want to travel over to the UK/USA/Canada to meet some of my friends there in a future tournament.
Also a side note, I'm glad everyone is enjoying the tournament graphic results I have been putting out for online tournaments, a lot of guys have made it their mission to be on it and I'm just happy whenever someone says it's cool to see themselves in one of it. I'm just glad that I can help make things easier for everyone and make their day. I've done this graphics before for my local scene and no-one gave a shit about it so it's nice to see that others in the online world are actually liking it and my hard work is paying off.
#9 - Travelling to Melbourne, Australia for my first International & playing against the defending World Champion at OCIC League Challenge
Travelling the border was nice but travelling overseas for a tournament was something completely new. My last major event before the 2020 season was suspended was the Oceania International Championships, one of the 4 biggest tournaments in the entire season. I had been playing to finally make the trip to test myself against the best players in the world.
That entire week was fun, the event being held in Melbourne was icing on the cake as I have been to Melbourne 3 times before, all for the F1 race. And this was my first ever solo trip which was cool. I picked the right deck, going with my usual Fire Box but I had no luck in my games, going 3-5-1 which hurt as I had put so much time for this event only to go home with nothing to show for it. I did have fun overall, meeting many familiar faces and making new friends. I just wished Asian players were still allowed to compete in future Internationals as I really wanted to make the trip to NAIC in the future.
(editor's note, this was meant to be a separate entry but a last minute addition meant I'm combining these two together)
Speaking of OCIC, maybe my favourite moment came in Round 3 of the most stacked League Challenge I've ever seen. Names included Pedro Torres, Isaiah Bradner, Yoshiyuki Yamaguchi and the defending World Champion himself Henry Brand so imagine my reaction when I found out I got paired against him in Round 3.
He was playing his interesting version of Mewtwo & Mew-GX with Sogaleo-GX, and he mentioned that he had matched me with online in a game before, that's where I've seen this deck! I remember seeing someone play it and thinking, wow this is a cool version of the deck.
What's even more amazing, I somehow managed to get the win here. And better yet, he was complimenting me on how I approached that game which was one of the biggest confidence boosters anyone could get, coming from the Champion himself!
#8 - Winning Atlas Mini Tournament with a deck I wasn't familiar with, 1st out of 52 Players - 21st October 2020
So this was added in just as I was about to post my list up because as of this morning, I won the latest Atlas DAA Mini 11 tournament, which was my first online tourney win featuring best of 3 swiss rounds on a daily basis instead of the usual best of 1 all day tourney.
What made this win that bit special was that I won it with Eternatus VMAX (the poison variant), a deck that I had little to no practice going into that tournament and I picked it only because I thought it looked more interesting and more fun to play than the usual Eternatus VMAX.
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/776573414
So I was learning how to play the deck on the go along with testing it on a daily basis on PTCGO, and I was pretty proud of the outcome, as I had to beat a number of bad matchups to take that win, especially in the finals against Blacephalon and also beat LucMet in Swiss, a deck that is traditionally one of Eternatus' worst matchup. So it proves that I can win tournaments with different decks as well!
#7 - Winning back to back Japanese online Tournaments
These days I'm usually in tournaments that don't fit my timezone, either I have to get up really early for the American/Latin tourneys or stay up late for the European tourneys. So when I found out that outsiders were allowed to join in for the fun of the Japanese Kai Cup hosted by Yoshiyuki Yamaguchi, I jumped at the chance of playing in it. I've always said Japanese players, in my own view, are probably the most skilled of any region out there so this was a nice chance for to test again their best. They're the most fun to play against too, never any issue and always very nice.
So to win one was pretty cool but going back-to-back tournament wins was even better. The first one I won with my own version of Centiskorch VMAX which at that point I felt hadn't gotten much respect but this win caught the eye of even the legend himself Azul GG. The biggest eye catcher was playing two Eldegoss V which I don't think anyone had done before that and it won me so many games.
And how could I top that off? By winning the next tournament with a deck many considered dead on arrival of Eternatus VMAX, yes I got Dragapult VMAX a win in a Darkness Ablaze format! I built the deck around trying to beat Vikavolt and some stall stuff and it paid off really nicely, I did end up meeting and beating two different versions of Stall/Control decks.
#6 - Sunday Open Winner - 1st out of 140 players, 13th September 2020
So you saw on post #14 how much it hurt me to lose that final of the Sunday Open so I made it my mission for redemption when the Sunday Open resumed. This format was a one time thing too, the one and only time we did a 10-round Swiss format to see how it'd go (went on quite long) but it went perfectly for me, going 9-1-0 in Swiss, ending it in 1st place going into top cut.
Top cut went near perfect for me, 2-0 win vs Deci Goon in Top 8, the techs coming in handy in this tricky matchup, 2-0 vs Greens Pika and then winning the mirror Centiskorch matchup in the finals. Second game was a disaster for me as I couldn't get anything going but the 3rd was just brilliant.
I refused to attack my opponent, simply focusing on building my Centiskorch up for a clean one shot on his Centiskorch and with his bench full of support Pokemon. I knew I could easily get the win by going that route as he'd need two turns to build anything up and by then I would have the win and that's how it played out, top draw Boss pretty much sealed that game.
That win felt good, as I stayed up until 6.30am in the morning to ride that wave out, I didn't get much sleep the next day but it sure was worth it to get that big win, my first in the new 2021 rotation. It was also the first time I ever got to put my name first on one of my usual entries for tournaments over on PokeStats.
#5 - League Challenge Winner - PokeBar League Challenge, 1st out of 19 players - 24th August 2019
This one was huge for me. The first big event of the new rotation and just like the year before, I scored CP right off the bat but this one was different as I score the full 15 CP for winning the League Challenge. This was my first big win in the game, as before that the closest I came was 3rd in a League Challenge or 8th in the Singapore SPE.
And it didn't come easy as I had to play against, in my view, one of the best players in the world in Clifton Goh in the final round. He was on PikaRom and I still was on my trusty Turbo ReshiZard but in the same build as the one Tord Reklv piloted to a top 4 finish at Worlds the week before and no-one else in my local area were onto it.
I had always played ReshiZard so it didn't take me long to figure out the new way of playing it. And it felt good to beat a legend like Clifton to get that first big win in Pokemon TCG. It was a funny one too as I KOed my own ReshiZard, hitting into his Siglyph-GX so I could get all six of my energies out of the way for my Victini Prism to clean house the next turn.
#4 - Singapore Circuit Invitational Winner - Summer 2019 Invitational, 1st out of 35 players - August 25th 2019
So how do I top winning my first League Challenge? Winning $162 by taking my first Singapore Pro Circuit Invitiational win 24 hours later. Same TurboZard deck as I used the day before, similar story, the deck just ran super smooth the whole way, ending swiss rounds at 6-0.
And just my luck, this was the one time we trailed an only swiss round format, and since I was the only guy at 6-0, that meant I was the clear cut winner. After coming close so many times, it felt good to finally win one of these. And the 1st placed playmat was a ReshiZard too, how fitting!
#3 - League Cup Top 4 Finish - Project EXT League Cup, 3rd out of 48 players - 12th October 2019
Still my best performance so far in a League Cup and sadly for now, the highest placement I'll get in a League Cup with the new changes. Two months on, still playing Turbo ReshiZard and still kicking it. I did get some funny luck in swiss rounds, getting paired with 4 Gardeon players in a row before sealing my spot in top cut with a win against Malamar, a matchup that can get very tricky.
Both my top cut games were streamed, both being somewhat mirror matches too. The first was TurboZard mixed with Mew3 which I always felt more clunky and it proved in our games. The second was once again the legend himself, Clifton. These were really close games and could have gone either way so I was quite proud of myself that I pushed one of the very best players in our era to his limits and it came down to the last prizes on the last turn of game for both of us, he beat me to the punch here.
#2 - Hegster TCG Top Deck Winner (2 times) - Season 1 Top Deck 26 and Season 2 Top Deck 12
Hegster TCG has become perhaps the biggest daily online tourney out there since the pandemic started and before everyone jumped on the bandwagon, I was already there. In my second event, I managed to get top cut but could never quite get the win until Top Deck 26. I went 3/0/2 in Swiss, and going on to 2-0 all three of my opponents in top cut, first a GreenZard, then the Dragapult mirror and finally PikaRom. So it was nice to finally win an online tournament but the sad part is, no-one really saw it happen as Hegster's stream was cut short as Ethan wanted to practice the new format haha!
I came close to correcting it in the first Top Deck of season 2, playing Dragapult to a 2nd place finish in a format everyone thought Dragapult was dead in. That big moment finally did come in Top Deck 12 of Season 2. I went 6/1/1 in Swiss, only losing to PikaRom and it's silly Hammer luck as usual. My games on top cut went way better than I could have hoped for.
So many times I got the draws I needed to pull off the big combos, beating LucMet first, then Eternatus with the big balls play of putting all my basket into the KO of Eternatus and it paying off and then trying to outsmart DeciGoon in finals and it paying off.
So that win felt so good, as many more people got to see it happen unlike my Sunday Open win, my Kai Cup wins, or my first Hegster win. Even though I made some clear mistaks in those games, I was still proud of how I got myself out of many tricky sitatuins, I still got a lot to learn before I can feel comfortable about challenging for wins on a more regular basis. I'm trying trying to better myself.
#1 - Singapore SPE Top 8 Finisher, 8th out of 75 people - 25th May 2019
And of course, my biggest moment had to be this. So the story goes, I had just finish my exams with little to no testing and practice to prepare myself for the Singapore SPE. I wasn't expecting much either as I had no chance of making it to Worlds unless I somehow won this event and I wasn't really going for points, it was only my first competitive season anyway.
I had already had my mind set on playing Turbo Reshiram & Charizard-GX but I couldn't find the right list until Rukan Shao told me about his list. It was completely different to anything I had seen. It was truly turbo with 3 Dedenne-GX and at that point, no-one had played more than two Dedenne-GX in their decks. Also played just one Jirachi with no Escape Board, something we are now living in.
The event was a weird one, I started out 1/2/0, giving two friends the win as they were both going after their Worlds invite and I didn't really care, I just wanted to play for the fun of it, de-stress myself from exams. And then something amazing happened, I won my next 4 rounds, finishing at 5/2/0 and with results going my way, I snuck into Top 8 of a Regional style event, I never would have guessed that would happen!
My Top 8 game vs Jit Min was a miserable one, I misplayed in the third game and cost myself any chance of a win but to hear him say I played that game really well to the point it got him nervous was a confidence booster, this is one of the best players in the world we're talking about.
That is still my favourite and biggest moment in the Pokemon Trading Card Game so far but of course, I'd like to think that in the future, there'll be more to top this. Even after winning tourneys, my immediate thought is, now to win the next one, don't dwell to much on what has happened in the past. But for this list, I'll make this one exception. Thank you for reading!
