The 2024-2025 Season Roundup
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 Roaring Moon as possible up and running while burning through Ancient cards, and it was a breath of fresh air from Gardevoir for a while. Got some points at a few challenges and the deck was running like a well-oiled machine. I took it to my first cup of the season at Game On in Saginaw and walked away with a win after an AB mirror in the finals against James McDaid from Delta Division. We got some KFC afterward so the day couldn't have gone better.
In September there was a new deck rising through the ranks that John, Kyle, and I were obsessed with: Palkia/Dusknoir. We were pissing ourselves laughing at how many non-games this deck created so of course I had to make a run with it. Got top 4 at a challenge which was ok, but bombed what should've been a slam dunk at a Game On cup in part due to bad card choices and suboptimal play. November rolled around and the question became what to play for Toronto Regionals. Palkia/Dusknoir wasn't feeling so hot, and Ancient Box was getting a brand new tool in Koraidon from Surging Sparks, so I got back to grinding games (There may have been a few weeks dedicated to Blender Lugia). The stars aligned and John, Kyle and I were finally all able to make it to the same cup at Destiny Games late November. And as luck would have it, we all made top cut together for the first time. At this point we were anticipating the rise of Charizard, which boded HORRIBLY for Ancient Box. That day I scraped out a tie in swiss and a win in top 8 in some incredibly scuffed games. My strategy in the mu was to send up Great Tusk with a capsule as soon as possible to try and mill Rare Candies while being just out of range of being OHKO'd by Burning Darkness, with the added bonus of being able to dump more Ancient cards before my opponent starts taking prizes. Like I said, scuffed. In top 4 I played Kyle on Blocklax where I forgot how Miss Fortune Sisters worked about five times. Not the worst showing but I could have done better.
Two weeks out from Toronto and I was feeling the pressure, not only from the tournament but also from school, because the Friday before Toronto was the end of the semester and I had some important assignments due. The Charizard boogeyman was lurking as it kept growing in meta share every tournament, so I was hoping there would be a Blocklax uptick to snuff it out. I scraped by in school through the grace of God, and now I had to book it to Royal Oak so I could meet up with John and Kyle and make our way to Toronto. At this point we were all considering our options. Kyle initially took a look at Gholdengo because of its inherent consistency and massive power buff thanks to Energy Search Pro but then committed to Blocklax. John and I were Ancient Box truthers but he got spooked by Zard like me so he abandoned ship and switched to Turbo Moon. Even though Ancient Box didn't have the greatest mu spread at the time, it was by far the deck that I found most enjoyable to play and its all single-prize underdog status reminded me of Regis. There were a couple different ways to play Ancient Box floating around; some with a Brute Bonnet/Mochi package, some with exs, and some with all single-prizers. I opted to play with only single-prizers so I could maximize the amount of turns I could use to dump Ancient cards and start hitting in the 300s with Moon. I was dead set on playing Ancient Box but by the time the weekend actually came I was starting to regret my choice. I deemed Zard to be too big of a risk, so I was caught between three decks: AB, Turbo Moon, and Gholdengo. Togekiss from Surging Sparks was getting hyped up as a partner for Gholdengo, and although I'm averse to playing coin flip cards, the chance for an extra prize card seemed too good not to try. And with Energy Search Pro, Gholdengo could get an OHKO on pretty much anything in the format with ease. Midnight before Day 1, I sleeved it up and hoped for the best.
3-4-2. My lack of experience with the deck, some AWFUL flips, and horrible plays throughout the day sealed my fate. From the moment I saw my round 1 opponent (Michigan mainstay Grant Walworth) flip over Snorlax I wished I'd have just sent it with Ancient Box. Lowlight of the weekend was John and Kyle watching me flip the Wonder Kiss tails that led to a tie in round 9 (against a Charizard). Lesson learned: Go with what you know.
With Toronto over and no regionals on the horizon I let go of trying to perform well and just wanted to play without stakes. Which led to my annual pivot back to Gardevoir. I ripped Michael Davidson's top 16 Toronto list and started learning the ropes again. February marked my return to events, starting with an absolute bomb of a cup at Time Travelers where I won my first round and proceeded to lose the next five. Honestly it served as a wake-up call to run a lot more games, cut the junk in the deck and hone in on the essentials. With F block's rotation just two months away, I wanted to make the most of it.
It was around this time that a Drifloon-less, Bravery Charm-less, tanky Gardevoir with Hero's Cape as the ace spec became a known quantity and Kyle and I were on board. This version of Gardevoir used Gardevoir ex as the main attacker with a thick Munkidori count and relatively few other attackers. Kyle was a big proponent of Energy Switch to go for more aggressive Adrena-Brain plays and 2nd Klefki to increase odds of finding it because of its phenomenal use cases against big basic decks and Lugia. We agreed on a 60 and each took it to cups in our respective areas, with me heading to The Stadium in Bay City. The deck worked like a dream and we went a combined 13-3 in sets for the weekend. Klefki pulled its weight against Miraidon in the finals, which gave me my second cup win of the season while Kyle got second place at his, also against Miraidon (Miraidon was popular in Michigan).
I played the Hero's Cape version for a few more weeks, getting ambitious by trying to squeeze Drifloon, Bravery Charm, Manaphy, and Cresselia back in, with mixed results. In March, Henry Brand made waves at Vancouver Regionals with an Unfair Stamp Gardevoir list with an even bigger focus on establishing an all-Gardevoir/Munki board thanks to beefed-up counts of search cards like Ultra Ball and Earthen Vessel, plus Fezandipiti ex for emergency draw. I locked in on this list and it felt like the best iteration of the deck thus far, even beating out Paradox Rift Gardevoir. I ran this list verbatim for the rest of the quarter with the exception of swapping Nest Ball for Cresselia later on, and it went gangbusters. Unfortunately at Evolution Games' league cup I made the obvious blunder of using Adrena-Brain under my own Mischievous Lock to get the game-winning KO, and after we had scooped up our cards and signed the slip I acknowledged my own error and gave my opponent the win, knocking out my chances of making cut at my last cup of the quarter. However, it wasn't the end.
The last weekend of March I won a league challenge at Saginaw and made my way to a Journey Together win-a-box at Bay City for the last stand. Just like last year, Hez and I dressed in our Sunday best and prepared for some sweaty competition. After 4 rounds of swiss I was 3-1, but 3-1-1 was a risky ID so I had to play out the last round. It was Gardevoir vs Lost Box and we both drew damn near every card in our decks, but at the end he was one piece short of putting together the game-winning Amp You Very Much, and I took the game. In top cut I played the mirror, Hez on Archaludon/Dialga in top 4, and another Lost Box in the finals. Klefki and Flutter Mane took control, and I went home one booster box richer. Combined record for the weekend: 11-1. Thanks, Kirlia.
Once rotation hit I took a step back from intensive practice since school was wrapping up and I needed to finish strong. I experimented with a few decks like Tank Terapagos, Gardevoir again, and Gholdengo. Gholdengo in particular was looking pretty promising due to retaining its great draw and OHKO potential. John and I worked on a list using Dudunsparce for even more draw power, and Gholdengo SSP as a single-prize attacker that could answer Cornerstone Mask Ogerpon and also attack without discarding energy. With Kyle on Tera Box, we headed to The Stadium in Frankenmuth for what would be my last cup of the season. Going 4-1 in swiss with a loss to Tera Box, I made it to top 4 along with John. Unfortunately we met in top 4, and my Gholdengo moved on to the finals to play fellow southeast MI local Josh Wheeler on Tera Box (who I lost to in swiss). In this set I thankfully wasn't punished for not playing a Pikachu ex counter, and ended up winning my third and final cup of the season. Didn't feel bad about skipping NAIC this year since after the Frankenmuth cup I played very infrequently, and spent my time finishing up school and job-hunting instead.
So we end at 229 CP for the season, a far cry from last season's 345 but I don't feel too busted up over it. I had other responsibilities to tend to and now I'm positioning myself to start my career while I take a short break from TCG. But I'll be back. Gardevoir's still in format after all. Thanks for reading this yap session.
BONUS: I got to play a few cubes this season, including Delta Division's cube in Toronto and Ben DeGarmo's cube in May. Cubing is a lot of fun and it's a great change of pace from standard.
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