Posts

The 2024-2025 Season Roundup

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                Another Pokémon season has come and gone, which means more Michigan cup drives, more regional stories, and more Gardevoir ex. This season was the most lax I've been as a competitor since I started going to tournaments back in 2022. Not a whole lot at stake here other than trying to prove myself through competition and prepping for the annual regional run. My final year of school and other responsibilities took a bite out of my practicing time, but I still became dedicated to a couple decks throughout the season just to stay fresh.     Post-NAIC 2024 I took the month of June off from doing any intensive practice, mainly fooling around with Legacy Energy Regis at locals for a few hours on Saturdays. July and August I took interest in Ancient Box and started playing games semi-frequently when I wasn't working so I could hit up some locals later in the summer. I really liked the gameplay loop of trying to get as many Roa...

The Big Fat 2023-2024 Season Recap Post

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My goal for the 2023-2024 season was to make a legit effort to qualify for the 2024 World Championships. This didn't happen. In all honesty it wasn't really in the cards (lol) to make a push for an invite considering most regionals within driving distance were at poor timing (Toronto on Halloween, Indy at graduation), and the performance I did have at a regional (Peoria) was a bomb. Nonetheless I performed well at locals and snagged a few cup finishes. After NAIC 2023 concluded and the 23-24 season began, I wanted to try the Mewtwo V-Union/Reversal Energy build of Gardevoir because I didn't have a lot of time to practice due to work, but I wanted to experiment with its comeback potential and unique playstyle. I played around with it online and took it to a challenge but struggled with it because of how exhausting it was to play given a time limit. For the rest of August I went back to original Gardevoir and still came back with mid challenge finishes. Around this time my fr...

NAIC 2023 - 241st Place + 2022/2023 Season Recap

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  Went 5-2-2 at the North American International Championships placing 241st/1897 playing Gardevoir ex. I've been playing Gardy ever since Fort Wayne concluded and thoroughly enjoyed playing it throughout the BST-SVI format. Paldea Evolved gave it a lot of new tools to work with at the cost of becoming a bigger target in the metagame. Even still, it's a force to be reckoned with once it gets going. Here's how the matchups went: R1: Turbo LZB WW R2: Gardevoir ex W (opponent couldn't play) R3: Arceus/Giratina WW R4: Fusion Mew WLT R5: Gardevoir ex WW R6: Lugia Single Strike WW R7: Turbo LZB WLT R8: Gardevoir ex LL R9: Giratina LZB LL When the deck was hot, it was hot. It's very contingent on getting a solid opening with 3+ Ralts T1 to start drawing cards and if the Kirlias get online, the deck starts chugging. Lost Engine decks were definitely the hardest matches of the day, and even with multiple Ralts early on and damage-soaking mons taking hits in the early game I ...

Fort Wayne Regionals 2023 - 89th Place

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  Went 8-5-2 at Fort Wayne Regionals placing 89th/1153, putting me at 70/350 CP. Since Toronto I dabbled with some other decks, namely Frosmoth Box and Palkia/Inteleon, but after middling results and a lack of experience with the decks to play them at a top level I went back to my old favorite, Regis. Goodra, Weezing, Eiscue, Flying Pikachu, and others have really made playing this deck a pain sometimes, but I love it too much to drop it. After a lot of matchup preparation for this event, I was reasonably confident going in and was confident my (Rahul Reddy's) list could handle any situation. Here's the game results: R1: Rotom VSTAR WW R2: Arceus/Duraludon LL R3: Palkia/Inteleon WW R4: LZ Goodra WW R5: Lugia WW R6: Lugia LWT R7: Lugia WW R8: Arceus/Duraludon LWW R9: Mew LWL R10: Lugia WW R11: Arceus/Flying Pikachu/Tapu Koko LL R12: Arceus/Duraludon LWT R13: Eldegoss Control WW R14: Arceus/Duraludon LL R15: Lunatone/Solrock LL Rahul really cracked the code for this deck. All the...