Pokémon League Locals - January 12th, 2025

Today was a Pokémon VGC Challenge at the shop I attended, so there were a number of video game players partaking in the current video game regulation - Regulation G, as the format recently shifted back to that, after several months of Regulation H.

I showed up a few minutes late, and there had already been enough players present for the event to fire, so I mostly just watched a little bit, did a small bit of shopping for some tokens for Magic, and also watched a little bit of two players playing Gym Leader Challenge against each other.

I did eventually have a game against a player who showed up even later than I did for the VGC Challenge, who missed Round 1 due to being so late, and then got a Bye in Round 3. So they could get another game in, I played them with my Regulation G team. They were incredibly new to Pokémon VGC, so it did not go well for them, but I did offer a few tips for making their team better. They asked about what to keep in mind when building a team for Trick Room, so that was interesting as I had to consider for myself the constraints of building a Trick Room team, as opposed to a team more suited to Tailwind.

After both VGC and the local Standard play for the day finished up, I played three games of Gym Leader Challenge against one of the other Professors, with the both of us using our Fairy decks.

Gym Leader Challenge: Fairy Control vs. Fairy Aggro

The first game, quite frankly, isn't worth talking much about. I couldn't draw Pokémon to save my life, and the other professor's coin flips were on absolute fire, so their Tapu Fini was able to continuously use Dream Away to shuffle away my active Pokémon, all while they were digging for more energy to use their actual, damage-dealing attack. The game ended when I finally failed to draw a new Pokémon and they were able to attack with their Tapu Fini's Wonder Shine to KO my final Pokémon. I lost for not being able to replace it with a new active.

The second game went significantly better, with a more varied back and forth. My deck is designed not to attack at all, it is completely a control build reliant on my Fairies' abilities and my Supporters to establish locks. The other professor did manage to start breaking through said lock, and it was slowly, steadily heading towards my loss, though there was room for me to turn it around and reestablish a lock.

At least until I realized I had made a significant play error out of my excitement to have gotten access to a particular Pokémon in my Prizes. Whoops. That one was completely on me.

Our third and final game was finally a really solid affair that got to have a meaningful conclusion that we were both satisfied with. I started the game by stalling with Charmed Charm Tapu Lele, confusing their only attacker by attaching a Fairy Charm to my Tapu Lele. I got the Stadium card Shopping Center into play, allowing me to bounce and replay the Charm each time they managed to retreat and break the Confusion, though they got several prizes doing so.

Eventually, I built up a solid loop with a Robo Substitute and Wondrous Gift Florges, where the substitute would get knocked out, and Florges, provided I got heads on a coin flip, would get it back out of my discard pile and on to the top of my deck, and the next turn I would then draw the substitute to put it back into play. This went fairly well until they were able to bump my Shopping Center to fully break my Charm loop, followed by a few bad coin flips meaning I couldn't keep them unable to take prizes. That they bumped my Shopping Center with a Parallel City was further icing, as I was restricted to three bench spaces, limiting my options each turn.

The final nail in my coffin, as we discussed once we finished the game, was that I had a turn where I had the Robo Substitute in play, meaning I didn't need to Wondrous Gift for it, so I instead played a Pal Pad, then got that back with the Wondrous Gift. Instead, I could and should have gotten back my VS Seeker so I could pick my copy of Arven back out of my discard pile to be able to grab an item card from my deck, which would've given me the means to find something to help me deal with the Tapu Fini slowly breaking my board down. Instead I drew my Pal Pad again, shuffled cards back in, and because Wondrous Gift kept putting my Substitute and Lillie's Poké Doll back on top of my deck, I could never draw the cards that had gotten shuffled in. It was a slow, grindy loss, because they were able to draw new resources, even as they whittled their own deck down, and got a few prizes on the turns where I failed Wondrous Gift, until eventually they managed to get their VS Seeker to pull their Guzma back out and bring up an actual Pokémon, getting around my Substitute for their final prize.

I love my Fairy GLC Deck, but it definitely needs some changes made to it, I think. It relies on Wondrous Gift loops to establish a lock, but that's an incredibly slow win by mill on top of being luck-based since if I fail to hit my Wondrous Gift, that's a turn where I can't do anything to delay my opponents. I've ordered a few cards that the other professor and I think will help it operate more smoothly and help it to pick up more wins. Time will tell, but I'm excited to try it out.