Pokémon League - August 6th, 2026

 How long has it been since I've shuffled up to play the Pokémon TCG? Flipping back through my archives, the last time I wrote up a blog post about playing the TCG was late last June, after not one but two GLC Events in a row had left me feeling tilted and realizing that I wasn't having as much fun with the TCG as I would have liked.

Tonight, after well over a year since the last time I really dedicated a night to playing the Pokémon TCG, I decided to give it another go, on the condition that we would've otherwise had an odd number of players, as that meant I could eliminate a bye round for our players.

Given that I'm writing this post up, I'm sure you can figure out whether or not we had an odd number of players other than me.

As I haven't gotten around to gathering all of the pieces I would need to build the new "Hide 'n' Sneak" deck that Pitch Black put to print, I pulled out my faithful Festival Lead, a deck I've been playing (give or take my more-than-a-year off) since it first came out during Twilight Masquerade. Despite my hiatus, I've been making sure to keep it upgraded in a few places as new sets and new tools have come out, such as running Lillie's Determinations and a suite of "protective" support pieces like Psyduck and Patrat to keep my board safer from being sniped.

We had a total of 16 players tonight, myself included, so we had a 4-round event of standard Pokémon TCG play.

Round 1 vs Toucannon - Loss

Did you know that Cornerstone Ogerpon ex is immune to damage from any Pokémon with an Ability, needlessly making it impervious to many of the already fairly weak single prize attackers in the format?

Because I plain forgot that until my opponent dropped one in front of me, and with only one Boss's Orders available I couldn't get around it. I tried to get a Grookey set up so I could maybe poke it with enough damage to one-shot it through Weakness, but I couldn't find any of my precious few energies and wasn't able to get the monkey set up in time.

Round 2 vs Mega Abomasnow ex - Win

I forgot how ridiculous Mega Pokémon ex can be in terms of HP counts. Under optimal conditions, my Dipplins are able to strike for a lot of damage per attack - 100 for a full bench, an extra 20 from Lilligant's Sunny Day Ability, another 50 from Maximum Belt, and if I can empty my hand enough to play Gladion's Final Battle a whopping 80 additional damage brings me to a total of 250 per attack - but optimal conditions don't come by very often. Instead I was smacking the trees for around 120 or 130 per Do the Wave, meaning that they were successfully surviving to crack back even after the double-attacks granted by the Festival Lead ability.

Despite that, the absurd amount of damage that Abomasnow can output, and that the single prize Kyogre that serves as its backup can likewise dish out, is wasted on a deck where the most HP any of my Pokémon are printed with is a paltry 110 on Lilligant and Seaking. Fortunately despite the absurd HP count, it only took one and a half rounds of attacks to take out each Abomasnow, and the Kyogres and Snovers fared significantly worse. I was able to get an early lead, and then each Mega Abomasnow being worth three prizes meant it didn't take long for me to clear out my Prizes.

Round 3 vs Mega Excadrill ex - Win

When my opponent revealed Genesect ex as their starting Pokémon and I saw the Grass Resistance, I audibly groaned. The one match where Resistance was going to matter, and it was going to matter a lot considering the nature of how Festival Lead works as a deck, relying on multiple attacks per turn for the damage, is countered pretty nicely by each of those attacks being weakened by opposing Resistance.

However, fortunately enough, my opponent bricked. I was able to get set up well and start putting out a lot of damage even through their Resistance thanks to a bevy of my buffs, and while they did get established eventually, they were at the point where they were relying on the Genesects themselves to be their primary offense. All in all, not a bad idea, considering the combination of Resistane and the Genesect's attack giving them even more damage prevention, but I was able to figure out a workaround, mostly by way of having two Boom-Boom Grooves available to find whatever buffs would work out best for me.

Round 4 vs Marnie's Grimmsnarl ex/Frosslass - Win

During the time in between us finishing our third-round games and the start of the fourth round, several of us, including the Marnie's player, were discussing Festival Lead and a few of its matchups. The Grimmsnarl matchup into Festival Lead is quite favorable despite Grimmsnarl's weakness to Grass, because the deck decides to instead play as a Frosslass/Munkidori deck to take out the bench full of low HP 'Mons that are rife with Abilities that Festival Lead employs.

Unfortunately for my opponent, and fortunately for me, they met the same fate as my Round 3 opponent: They bricked hard, and I swiftly took the game thanks to my getting set up before they could get me locked down at all. This even in spite of all three copies of Thwackey that I run being locked away in my Prize Cards, meaning I didn't have my free search effect each turn.

Conclusion

After over a year of not playing the Pokémon TCG I... genuinely forgot that it really can be a lot of fun.

I won't lie, I think a large part of that is that shifts in the meta mean that a lot of the control-oriented lock decks aren't big parts of the metagame right now, and while Dragapult remains the king of the format, there was a lot of variety in what was being played at League.

If I intend to keep playing even semi-regularly again, I will need to consider running some sort of an out for dealing with Cornerstone Ogerpon, just in case I run into the Toucannon deck again. Being unable to do anything due to the legendary ogre's damage prevention ability was the most deflated that I felt during the night. That or get around to collecting what I need to play Hide 'n' Sneak instead.

One or the other.

Pokémon League Locals - GLC Event - June 29th, 2025

 Today was the "capstone" event for my League's inaugural attempt at a Gym Leader Challenge League. Several highly expensive full-art Trainer cards, as well as some expensive energies from the Heart Gold/Soul Silver era of the TCG, were up for grabs.

Knowing my Fairy Control deck has issues with actually closing out games, despite the myriad changes I've made to speed it up and provide it more consistency, I elected to play my Water GLC deck instead. This may have been a mistake, as I went 1-3, but there's honestly no way to know whether or not I would have fared any better - or any worse - if I had played my Fairies instead.

With 12 total players, we had 4 rounds of Swiss before cutting to a Top 4. As I said, I went 1-3, so I did not make the Top Cut.

Game 1 vs Water - Loss

A player who, by their own admission, spends around half their time thinking about Water decks, their list had a far more focused game plan. On top of this, they had a much easier time getting set up, doing so much more quickly than I did, leaving them in a far better position to make use of their resources. It was a relatively quick affair, with me getting beaten pretty handily.

Game 2 vs Grass - Win

My one win for the day, because it was basically the exact opposite for me. I got set up splendidly and took fairly quick control over the game. Veluza took early knockouts, passed its energy on to Shady Dealings Inteleon via Filet Memento once it was knocked out, with the spy lizard covering most of the rest of the game for me. A lucky triple heads from a Scale Hurricane Butterfree took down Inteleon, however, leaving Baxcalibur to finish out the game for me, taking out the Butterfree and a Beedrill in short order once it was promoted to the active spot.

Game 3 vs Fighting - Loss

A game that was frustrating to me for one major reason: Most of my energy was prized, as was one of my two energy search cards. My opponent ran roughshod over me with Buzzwole, and there was nothing I could really do to stop it. Even if I had, by the time I had gotten anything that could've potentially stood a chance, my opponent was down to one prize and had a Steelix on the bench prepared to finish the game out with its Earthquake.

Game 4 vs Grass - Loss

My final game for the GLC event, this game was mostly a close-feeling back and forth between us. Both Veluza and my Rapid Strike Wishiwashi came and went, putting in a ton of damage thanks to Baxcalibur enabling me to quickly power them up, but when my opponent managed to get a Zarude set up to one-shot my Wishiwashi, the game turned around quickly against me. I needed to get my energy back from the discard pile, and wound up trying to fish for cards that would let me fill my hand and hopefully get Superior Energy Retrieval.

I realized, after the game as I was talking with my opponent, I could have just used the Evolution Incense I had in hand to grab Shady Dealings Drizzile and go fetch my copy of Nessa, then used her to get my energy from my Discard, which I could've then used to power up Baxcalibur to take Zarude out. My opponent had nothing but "support" Pokémon left in play at that point, so there's a distinct possibility that I could've turned the game around from that point. But, to my great consternation, that was a line of play that didn't even attempt to occur to me while I was in the middle of the match.

Post-GLC/Conclusion

After taking some time to cool my head - my last two matches left me somewhat tilted - myself and one of the other Professors elected to pull out our Switches and play the best TCG Format: VGC.

Using "Regulation H" rules, which meant no Restricted Pokémon, we had a fun set of three games. I lost the first two, but won our third and final game. The VGC was much-needed after my GLC losses.

But I digress. I'm realizing more and more that I don't know how much fun I really have playing the Pokémon TCG, even as I continue to enjoy my Professor duties for the League. At least twice in the past month, both during GLC events, I have found myself getting needlessly frustrated and getting incredibly tilted. While Standard, which I play less frequently, has still been mostly enjoyable, I'm still finding myself at a point where I'm overall having way less fun with the TCG than the time I spend playing it is worth.

I will likely try to step away from playing the Pokémon TCG, at least for a while. I've been meaning to make that change for some time, but I keep finding myself roped into playing despite my intention. I'm going to continue my Professor duties for my local League, I enjoy the community too much to step away from that entirely. I even have more Professor "things" coming up in the near future - I plan to attend the Pokémon Professor Conference in about two weeks, and I submitted an application to hopefully work as staff for an upcoming Regional in my area (though I have no idea at this point whether or not I will be selected), so we'll see how things go for me from here.

Pokémon League Locals - June 15th, 2025 - No playing, Only Professor Duties, and I loved it

 Today was a rather tiring, but fulfilling day at my local League.

In addition to our typical League shenanigans - for which we had a rather respectable turnout in spite of it being Father's Day - we also had a small party with our League. Today was also the Finals Day for Pokémon's North American International Championship, so the League's professors planned for a watch party today. The store generously provided us some pizza, we had baked goods, soda, and generally made merry while we had Standard play firing alongside our NAIC Watch-Along.

But also, we had six new players show for League today, with myself and one of the other professors at some point digging through a box of "League Bulk" - extra cards that have been donated to our League, either by the professors or by other players, to give out to players who need the extra cards for their decks - to help two of the players build not one but three total decks.

So in addition to running our Standard League Play, the three professors present today helped the new players with rules interactions when they came up, aided in building three separate decks, and coordinated with the store to throw a small party.

All of this without me shuffling up a single deck.

This is the sort of day I love to have at my local League. Give or take the party, which was nice, but not the main part of what made today feel so good.

So many people, including so many new players, all coming together, having fun, and my being able to help them in various ways, helping to foster that sense of community. That is why I became a Pokémon Professor, and that is by far and away my favorite part of the Pokémon TCG at this stage. If I never had to shuffle up a deck to play another game of Pokémon, but in exchange I got see more days like today happen regularly at the League? I'd be happy with that.

Pokémon League Locals - June 12th, 2025

 I was not originally intending to play during tonight's League, but we wound up with an odd number of players, and I was the only Professor who brought a Standard deck along.

Ergo, I ended up shuffling up my Festival Lead Dipplin deck and playing in tonight's 3-round League locals.

Round 1 vs Yanmega ex - Win

Hilariously enough, I had just thrown this player a copy of Yanmega ex that they had needed for their deck tonight, so facing off against them in Round 1 must have been some bizarre providence of fate.

Or just coincidence thanks to Pokémon's Tournament Organization Manager software. Either way.

This was a relatively quick game, with a little back-and-forth between us. They got a handful of Yanmegas set up and prepared, but never more than one at a time. Meanwhile, with my selection of Dipplins and Tools, I was able to take out their bugs just as soon as they took out my apples. With me as a deck full of Single-Prize Pokémon, the math worked out in my favor and I won the prize race.

Round 2 vs Marnie's Grimmsnarl/Froslass - Loss

This game came down the absolute wire between the two of us. We finished with plenty of time left in the round, but it was a practical nail-biter that could have easily gone either way for the two of us. They made a few play errors, sequencing their turns poorly, but it didn't impact their game too drastically.

The final turn came down to some fortunate damage management on their end, where they were able to use TM Devolution to take out four of my Pokémon at once, taking a massive four-prize turn to win. Had they not managed to do that, I was primed and poised to take the win on my turn, but I couldn't even attempt to be mad because of just how much fun the game was and how close the result wound up being.

Round 3 vs Marnie's Grimmsnarl/Froslass - Win

Following up on the Grimmsnarl/Froslass game I had just played, I was paired against a second Grimmsnarl/Froslass for Round 3.

This player was less familiar with the list, it seemed, and admitted at some point that they were only borrowing their friend's deck and that they didn't have one of their own.

They were astonished at how much damage my Applins were able to push out, and how quickly I could set up the apples to do so. They didn't seem to ever find their Froslass to start forcing damage around on my field, which gave me a much easier time dealing with them than my opponent in the previous round, and once I grabbed a Vitality Band to further power up my Applin, I was able to easily take two prizes each turn, quickly securing the victory.

Pokémon League Locals GLC League - June 1st, 2025

 Today, six people showed up for our local Gym Leader Challenge league, including most of the Professors for the card shop. I want to say it was mostly fun, though two of my games proved more than a little frustrating for me for entirely different reasons.

Three rounds, Best of 1, 40 minute games each. I played a Fairy Control deck.

Game 1 vs. Water - Draw

This was, by far, the best game of the three that I played today. It was an incredibly back and forth game, where I kept my opponent stalled down for several turns at a time, though they found ways to break my locks and start fighting through my defenses. We went all the way to Time and into the final turns of the game, where neither of us were quite able to grab the final victory. I had milled out all but four of the cards from their deck, and by the end of their final turn, they had taken 5 prizes. We both thought that the game was fun and incredibly tight.

Game 2 vs. Fire - Loss

My opponent this round was a literal child, one of the League's younger regular attendees, so keep in mind during all of what I'm about to say about this game, I am incredibly aware that my opponent was a child and that my frustration is not directed towards them in particular:

In terms of actually taking a win during an actual 40 minute round, my deck's biggest weakness is going against an opponent who takes a long, if still reasonable amount of time to play out a turn. They're unfamiliar with their own deck, they're unfamiliar with playing against control decks and how to handle the sort of stalling and walling that my deck intends to engage in, any of a number of reasons like that.

Being a child that is understandably easily distracted - say, by the League running its May end-of-month raffle in the middle of our round - is one such reason for my opponent to take somewhat longer turns.

So while I was trying to get my opponent to focus on our game without being a complete jerk - because, again, literal child - my own attention was not completely on the game itself because of needing to draw my opponent's focus back.

This meant that when they dropped a Skeledirge with an ability protecting them from the effects of my attacks, such as my Klefki trying to confuse it with Metal Sound, or stop it from retreating with Fairy Lock, it did not register to me at the time that the Skeledirge was immune as such.

And this was not caught for a few turns, at which point the game could not be reasonably rewound once an outside observer noticed.

Game 3 vs. Dark - Loss

And following up on my keeping myself from getting too frustrated at a child, I played against another of the shop's Professors and, quite plainly, could not play the game.

I ran out of cards-in-hand fairly early on, and my Cleffa's Excitable Draws accomplished nothing, I was absolutely incapable of landing a Heads on literally any attempt to refill my hand using the ability. This meant I was easily picked apart by my opponent's Nidoking slamming into my Fairies for 190 damage a turn. My bulkiest 'Mon, Xerneas, who even has a Resistance to Dark, only has 130 HP, so Nidoking could still one-shot it with ease, and it was over in incredibly short order.

Pokémon League Locals GLC League & Content Update - April 6th, 2025

 So I know I said a while back that I wouldn't be doing as much writing on Pokémon League play any more due to my waning interest in Standard, but I may have been made a slight liar by a recent decision made by my League and the other professors to introduce a quasi-formal GLC League to our normal Sunday rotation.

Assuming that the GLC League works out for this "first season" - which will last from today, at the beginning of April, until the tail end of June - we will regularly have Gym Leader Challenge play occurring alongside our normal Standard play.

As GLC is a format I am much more interested in, this works out to mean I will in fact have a steady flow of Pokémon games to write about. This slightly throws off a plan I had where I would try to go out on some of my Sundays to a different card shop in the area to play FFTCG, but I may still try to make that happen. Though this month will prove to be a little odd due to the Easter holiday on my next off-week, as my family want to get together and do something that day.

But I digress. I have Gym Leader Challenge to write about.

And while this would be the point where I would break into my typical headings to talk about each of my games individually, this week I'm not doing that for one main reason:

All three games played out more or less the same way. I used my Fairy deck - one of these days, I'll find a site I can use to upload my Pokémon deck lists the way I have Moxfield and Materia Hunter for MtG and FFTCG - and each game was ground to a practical standstill.

My first two rounds were against Colorless decks, and my third was against a Fire deck. In all three games, I played a highly effective stall strategy, using Robo-Substitute and Lillie's Poké Doll to keep my opponents from taking many prizes, getting obscenely lucky off of my Florges's Wondrous Gift flips to get the dolls back when they got KO'd and drawing them through Slurpuff's Tasting so that I wasn't stuck in a loop where I couldn't find any new cards.

Unfortunately, I had difficulties landing my various mill effects through my two main Supporters, Team Rocket's Handiwork and Miss Fortune Sisters. In my first game, I used Rocket's Handiwork numerous times but only ever hit a single heads with each use. In my second, I used Miss Fortune Sisters to great effect, but again only got one or two cards with each use. And in the third, I simply did not find my mill Supporters. I made use of Rocket's Handiwork maybe twice, but most of my resources were focused on getting around the fact that my opponent got set up in such a way that they had consistent attackers set up, so I needed to work around getting rid of their offense.

What this ultimately boils down to is that in my first two games, I came rather close to milling my opponent out. In my second, specifically, my opponent was down to three cards as we went into the last turn of the game, thanks to my whiffing my only use of Team Rocket's Handiwork and getting the double-tails.

My final record for today was going 0-0-3, which while nice that I was technically undefeated, I was somewhat disappointed that I had gotten so close to winning in two of my three games but just couldn't finish the job. This disappointment has prompted me to go and pull out a copy of Bellelba & Brycen-Man, a win-con from my deck's original incarnation, to give myself a third "win condition" card, one that has a guaranteed flat rate of mill. Once I figure out what comes out of the deck to make room, that will hopefully prove to be a change that gives my deck the last bit of juice it needs to take reasonably consistent wins.

Pokémon Prerelease + Content Update - March 20th, 2025

At League today is a prerelease for the next English Pokémon TCG set - Journey Together. I do not plan to participate as a player, I instead intend to help to run the event in the capacity as a Professor at the store.

Which is a segue into a small update to my plans for this Blog going forward:

I plan not to continue write-ups about my local Pokémon League events.

At least, not regularly.

I still enjoy Pokémon mechanically as a TCG. However, the direction that Standard looks like it will be taking in the near future, post-rotation and once we get into some of the sets and cards that have been being previewed and spoiled from Japan, is a direction that will be less appealing for me as a player.

Given that the majority of Pokémon events are Standard, that means that the majority of Pokémon events will be moving in a direction that don't appeal to me.

Whenever the Leagues I participate in run alternative formats, such as Gym Leader Challenge events, I still plan to play and do my usual write-ups. But for the foreseeable future, I intend to focus on my role as a Professor over playing, which means less games for this blog.

Pokémon League Cup & Challenge - February 23rd, 2025

Today at the card shop we ran a League Cup and a League Challenge, in addition to our normal casual Standard League play. 

I did not participate as a player, instead helping to judge and run the events as we attracted 26 players for the Cup alone, in addition to the players who came only for Standard and the Challenge.

Pokémon League Locals - February 20th, 2025

A normal, 4-round League Night, playing my Festival Lead Dipplin deck. 

Round 1 vs. Maushold ex - Loss

So it turns out that Maushold ex, while not a particularly "good" deck from a competitive standpoint, is effectively a hard counter to Festival Lead Dipplin.

My only attackers having incredibly low HP counts coupled with the damage that Maushold ex deals in retaliation meant that I could not reliably deal any significant damage, let alone take knock outs and prizes. My Festival Lead "double strikes" would be cut short by the fact that, with two Tandemaus on the bench and a Rocky Helmet for additional insult to injury, each attack would mean 110 retaliatory damage, which would instantly knock out my Dipplins and prevent me from being able to attack further.

And then the Maushold ex itself attacked for 120 damage, ensuring another knock out while also drawing my opponent two more cards. And while my deck does run a single copy of Canceling Cologne for this sort of matchup, that does me precious little good when that Cologne is locked away in my Prizes.

Round 2 vs. Charizard ex - Loss

My opponent had an incredibly fast start, and I had a comparatively slow one. Hilariously, this was the same opponent a few weeks ago who was playing Lugia VSTAR and had the nearly ideal start against me then, too.

Despite the difference in starts, it was a fairly close game thanks to my being a Single Prize deck. With my opponent being ahead by about two prizes, I got set up to take a knock-out against their Charizard. They then took my Dipplin down, and I was unable to find another Dipplin to get set back up before they got a Dusclops turn set up to take their last two prizes.

Round 3 vs Festival Lead Dipplin - Loss

I won the flip to choose who would get to play first. Knowing it was a mirror match because they were at the table beside me during my previous game, I went first with the knowledge that, basically, this game would boil down to whoever could evolve their Applin and attack first. At the end of the first turn, I was set that I would be able to evolve an Applin and a Grookey and be in a fantastic position. 

Then my opponent played an Iono during their turn, and I failed to draw a replacement for either Dipplin or Thwackey, let alone both. My next turn did not help with that. They, on the other hand, got set up wonderfully. The game quickly went in their favor after that. I was only able to get one Dipplin set up after that and did take some knock outs, but they had more Dipplins set up and were able to retaliate.

I made an attempt to stall by using Counter Catcher to trap their Thwackey in the active, but a Rescue Board and a Bug-Catching Set picking up a Grass Energy saw their Thwackey successfully retreating back into their Dipplin, at which point that was the end.

Round 4 vs Terapagos ex - Win

I set up pretty quickly with a full bench and a Vitality Band on a Dipplin by the end of my second turn.

Along with a Kieran in hand and a second Dipplin set up with a Maximum Belt, this spelled an incredibly rapid end to the game as I took three two-prize knock outs over the course of about four turns. I was delayed only by not having sufficient damage to immediately knock out a Terapagos ex after my setup - with the Vitality Band, I could only hit for 220, versus the Tera Turtle's 230 HP.

So my conclusion after tonight's 1-3 finish?

I still deeply love the Festival Lead deck, it is tremendous fun to play, and I will be trying to figure out how to modify it post-rotation so that I can continue to play it despite losing cards like Manaphy and Bibarel. But, after the past few weeks having been a bit underwhelming in terms of wins, I think I'm going to set it aside for a little while and bring my Ancient Box deck back out.

My list hasn't been updated in a while, so it still operates with both Primordial Beatdown Koraidon for earlier turns alongside Vengeance Fletching Roaring Moon to end the game with. That said, the list was always a little tight for space, so there hasn't been much that would have altered it regardless. I was also already tempted to have played it tonight because I've missed it, so a short break from the candied apple dragon will hopefully serve me well.

Pokémon League Locals - February 9th, 2025

 At the card shop where I do most of my TCG playing, we ran a small "Learn to Play GLC" event of sorts today, primarily headed by one of the other Professors.

After a short presentation about some of the foibles of the GLC format, people split off into pairs and played some games of the format in order to acclimate themselves to it, with many people borrowing decks from the other Professor.

For my part, I had just made significant changes to my Water GLC deck - previously, it was focused around Rapid Strike Pokémon from the Sword & Shield era of the TCG, but I changed it to shift the focus from Rapid Strike and towards being closer to a more typical "Rain Dance/Hydro Pump" style of list, utilizing the Pokémon Go set's Blastoise as both a potential acceleration tool and a hard-hitting attacker. So I used my own Water list against one of the learning players using the other Professor's Fire deck.

Yes, I did feel a little bad for it upon realizing which deck they had chosen.

Casual Gym Leader Challenge: Water vs. Fire - Win

Now, the thing you might think from the basics of the match-up - most, if not all Fire Pokémon having a weakness to Water - is that this was a blowout in my favor, that I handily ran away with the game.

You would be incorrect. Yes, as I noted, I did win, but it wasn't total devastation. This thanks to the equalizing magic of TCGs: Luck.

My starting hand was, frankly, bad. I was forced to start with a Manaphy and not much else. In addition, they won the coin flip and went second, so their opening was drastically better. Almost ideal, even. They opened with Chi-Yu, got an Entei on the bench, followed up with Nest Ball and Float Stone, which turned into a Flare Starter Volcanion. Float Stone on the goldfish, then a Professor's Research for a refilled hand was all it took to get Volcanion set up to attack and accelerate a ton of energy onto the field.

Those first few turns after that did not look good for me. 110 damage a pop from Volcanion was chunky damage, and while I tried to build up my position, they took a good number of prizes off of me. I finally managed to hit the PoGo Blastoise and ended my turn with Vitality Spring, where I was confronted with the fact that I hadn't been counting energy cards, and only had around 4 in total to play with. Admittedly, that was enough to set Blastoise itself up for success, but I was in a bad way if anything happened to my turtle.

Fortunately, nothing bad happened to my turtle. I was able to use Blastoise to tie the game back up, and in fact taking the lead by one, with Blastoise soaking a few hits in the process. By the time Blastoise finally went down, I had managed to set up my Wishiwashi, a Rapid Strike holdout in the deck, with enough energy to trigger its Group Power. Several Schooling Shots later - and soaking a PoGo Charizard's big 170 damage attack - finally put the game into my hands.

After the game, I poked around the store a little bit, watched some of the other learners as they played their games, and bought a few packs, both Pokémon and Magic: the Gathering, because I was itching to crack some packs open.

Eventually, another newish player, whom I've actually played against at this store's Friday Night Commander before, wanted to play a game of Standard. So I shuffled up my Festival Lead Dipplin deck to fulfill that request.

Casual Standard: Festival Lead Dipplin vs. Raging Bolt - Loss

Kind of poetically, what happened in this game was in some ways the inverse of what went down in the GLC game I had played earlier. I still lost the coin flip, and still went first, starting with a Grookey active. But I was able to hit a slightly better start, having not one but two Bug-Catching Sets, nabbing an Applin and a second Grookey off of the first one, then two Grass Energy with the second. I dropped my 'mons to the bench, attached an energy to the active Grookey, and passed.

My opponent had a somewhat slower start, but still fairly decent. My turn came around, though, and that's when things went quickly in my favor. Attaching an energy to my Applin, then playing a Buddy-Buddy Poffin loaded my bench up a little more, an Iono refilled my hand, giving me a filled bench, along with a Dipplin to evolve into, and a Thwackey whose Boom-Boom Groove turned into a second Thwackey, which in turn gave me my Maximum Belt. My opponent's look of shock when I OHKO'd their Raging Bolt with a candied apple was pretty nice. My next turn saw me take down a Teal Mask Ogerpon for two more prizes.

After which, my fortunes were basically shot. They got a Raging Bolt set up, along with energy to spare on their bench, which included more Ogerpons, and this saw the end of my Max Belt Dipplin.

Now, and this was incredibly my mistake, my bench was full. But it was not full of other Dipplins ready to go. I had my Manaphy despite knowing Raging Bolt doesn't do any spread, Cleffa who could have easily been my pivot, and Bibarel to help me draw cards. I had failed to do the math in my head and realize that a Dipplin with the Max Belt would only need 4 'Mons on the bench to be able to take down a Raging Bolt. So that meant I didn't have a second Dipplin ready to step up, which ended up being my downfall in the long run.

So while I tried to set up another Dipplin, they managed to Boss or Pokémon Catcher my Applins before I could get them prepared. I did eventually get a second and even a third Dipplin set up, but my burned resources and prized Super Rod meant I wasn't able to finish the game out, because when I got my second Dipplin in place, I wasn't able to KO their Raging Bolt. But I did weaken it in a big way, which I could have capitalized on to finish the game, but when I went to Boom-Boom Groove for a necessary energy, I realized all four that I run were already in the discard pile.

Forced to use a Lana's Aid for recovery, I was unable to Boss the weakened Bolt back into play, meaning that I took out the non-ex Sandy Shocks I had brought up with a Counter Catcher to stall with, but they sent out a second, uninjured Raging Bolt that they had managed to get set up after they took control of the game. My second Do the Wave was nowhere near sufficient to take it down, and on the very next turn, they finished the job and took their final prize card.

After a little chatting, me and the same player then played a game of GLC to introduce them to the format. They borrowed a Water deck from the Professor who had been the main person in charge of the learn to play, and I used my Metal deck because I have been considering taking it apart, and wanted to give it one last go before I decided to fully pull that trigger.

Casual Gym Leader Challenge: Metal vs. Water - Loss

In some ways, it's good that I used my Metal deck, both for my own "Yes, this deck does not work the way I want it to, I should take it apart" peace of mind, and because this player had never played GLC before, so it gave them the opportunity to learn what they were doing and how the deck they were playing worked to put all of the pieces together.

Once again, I lost the coin flip and went first, after three mulligans on my end. An omen about the way this game was about to go for me, in hindsight.

I opened with Crown Zenith Zacian, used Nest Ball to grab Galarian Meowth, and on their turn when they set up a slightly more impressive board I got hit for a minor amount of damage. On my turn, I had a significantly improved position. I dropped an Artazon, used Meowth's ability to go grab Steely Spirit Perrserker, played a Marnie to replace my hand, and wound up with a mostly-full bench enabling me to Battle Legion for a decent 70 damage for a quick KO.

There was a little bit of back and forth after that, but once they got Seismitoad into play and ready to rumble, the game was quickly over. The extra energy costs on my attacks wound up, unironically, losing me the game, in no small part because I had completely forgotten about it. I had sent up a fully stocked Orthworm, ready to attack, wearing a Luxurious Cape for extra HP since Palafin had done a small number on it and the Seismitoad would have otherwise KO'd it in one shot, but when I went to actually make the attack, I realized I couldn't due to Seismitoad's Quaking Zone ability. This meant I had to pass, the Seismitoad took the first shot on my Orthworm, and while I did manage to follow up with the Shoot Through the next turn, it wasn't the KO it would have been.

I wasn't able to recover after Field Blower removed my Cape - KOing the Orthworm - and my Jirachi's Escape Board, followed by my Perrserker getting KO'd when I promoted it. It was a slow loss thereafter, as I kept hoping to draw my Metang so I could hopefully set up an attack.

I really wish my Metal deck were better than it is. It has some fun tricks going on with it - Orthworm being able to be an utterly massive 330 HP wall that chunks out 100 damage at a time while also sniping the bench for 30 is impressive if it gets set up. Zacian's Battle Legion being able to get incredibly fast KOs in the early game, Galarian Perrserker's Steely Spirit being a Muscle Band for my entire board, Metang's Metal Maker being potentially amazing energy acceleration, Jirachi with Escape Board being one of the most powerful pivots ever, all of these are theoretically powerful cards that can do great things. But my Metal Deck is just missing something to make it properly click together the way I want it to.

Ah well. Like I said, I've been thinking about taking it apart as it is, especially since it has a handful of strong GLC staples that I don't have many copies of, which would potentially free those cards up for me to use in, for example, my Water deck, or to try building a different list entirely.

Pokémon League Locals - February 8th, 2025

There was a Gym Leader Challenge event at this shop today. I played my Fairy Control deck.

Game 1 vs. Water - Tie

This game wound up a draw. I was stalling behind Robo Substitute with Lillie's Poké Doll on the bench, they were stuck with an Alolan Vulpix active despite a wildly impressive bench, and we hit time during my turn, meaning that even if they did take knockouts during their two turns, it would have been for 0 prizes.

In slight fairness, it was a new-ish player who was borrowing the deck, wasn't completely certain how it was meant to play, and hadn't bothered to attach energy to retreat the Vulpix. If they had, the game may have gone incredibly differently, as they would have had a strong attacker set up and able to start chewing through my dolls and my 'mons.

Game 2 vs. Psychic - Loss

Not to take anything from my opponent, because they played incredibly well, but a not-insignificant portion of what happened to me in this game was that I drew like absolute garbage.

I got basically none of my tools to actually build a board presence with, and once they got a Giratina in play and loaded up with energy, it was a quick affair of KO after KO. Especially with a Munkidori moving away the damage being dealt to their own bench with Giratina's Shadow Impact, and combined with the low HP counts of most Fairy Pokémon it was easy for them to clear out what things I could get benched.

Game 3 vs. Fire - Loss

My opponent had an outrageously slow start, to the point that they very nearly conceded within the first few turns. Fortunately they elected not to, because this turned into a phenomenal game in my opinion.

Between Team Rocket's Handiwork, Miss Fortune Sisters, and several resources used to recur and reuse both of them, I milled out a large portion of their deck. They eventually got a Nine-Tailed Dance Ninetails set up to start taking knock outs that circumvented my Bench Barrier Mr. Mime, then they got a Skeledirge established to start knocking out my active Pokémon for several turns, leading to them taking their sixth and final prize during the last few turns after time had been called.

As close and tense as this game wound up being, though, I was incredibly thrilled with the way it went even though I lost.

Game 4 vs. Fighting - Tie

Another moderately slow start for my opponent, whose deck was full of Pokémon that deal high damage for low energy investment. The suite of low cost, high power attacks made it nigh-impossible for me to pick a target to attempt a Boss stall, especially given the fairly low HP counts on the vast majority of my Fairies. A couple of successful uses of Crushing Hammer did slow them for a few turns, but they pretty quickly drew and searched for new energies to replace the ones I had removed.

For the first time since making the changes to my deck, I saw a double-tails coin flip with a Team Rocket's Handiwork, which was unfortunate. I likewise didn't see a significant portion of the tools my deck thrives on, especially the Supporter recursion options, which did make it hard for me to attempt to impact the game the way I would have liked.

That said, I did successfully stall them out long enough that we hit time, then simply went back and forth for all three turns, ending the game in a draw.

Pokémon League Locals - January 26th, 2025

Played a few casual games of GLC on the side of our weekly Standard League play, getting more practice in with my Fairy Control deck.

Game 1 vs. Grass - Loss

I managed to get an early lock set up using Fairy Lock Klefki, but it only took a few turns for my opponent to find a Switch and break from that lock. That sort of set the tone for how this game went down for me. I stalled them, got a few locks in place, but invariably it would only be a turn or two before they managed to draw some out or another to break what I had in place while I was whittling away and trying to find my Miss Fortune Sisters or my Team Rocket's Handiwork to mill some cards. All in all, it was honestly a little frustrating to see the luck of the draw break so much in their favor that way.

Ultimately, a mistake on my final turn is what did me in, rather than their incredible luck at drawing their outs: I wasn't paying enough attention to how many prizes that they had taken. I thought they still had two left, when they were on their final prize. Had I been more cognizant of them being that close, I would've used my Supporter for the turn to play a Team Flare Grunt and discard an energy from their active Pokémon in an attempt to prevent them from attacking for the game. Instead, I used Team Rocket's Handiwork, trying to get some more mill done. Of course, given my luck that game, they probably had another energy in-hand and would've been fine to just attach and finish the job regardless, but I obviously can't say that with certainty.

Game 2 vs. Colorless - Draw

Again, I established an early Fairy Lock, but they got through it thanks to Colorless having a plenty of "double" energy in addition to other Supporter-based energy ramps, meaning that they got an attacker set up to knock my Klefki out. This left me a bit on the defensive, but I managed to stall them out regardless, and my Crushing Hammer luck did see me discard all of the energy that they had in play.

They eventually conceded as it was late into the day, we had paused so that the League's leader could work through an end-of-month raffle that our League does with support from the shop which was a lot of excitement and noise, and they did need to leave, so I technically won.

That said, I consider it a draw for a reason: I was running low on cards-in-deck myself, though I had a number of recursion effects in my hand that would let me keep myself from decking out. And while I had managed to slow them down by discarding all of the energy that they had managed to get into play with Team Flare Grunt, Crushing Hammer, and Enhanced Hammer, I can't actually say for certain that I would've managed to keep the stall going long enough to get the victory had they not conceded.

Pokémon League Learn to Play Day - January 25th, 2025

The card shop I go to on Saturdays was having a big learn to play day for new players to learn how to play the myriad games that they sell. This included Pokémon.

I showed a new player that their deck had a number of cards that aren't Standard legal, then ran two Learn to Play games for another new player, using older decks like the ones that used to be used at Play Labs and other side events at Regionals and other similarly-scaled events. After those two Learn to Play games the first newbie came back, having bought a new precon and wanting to try the game out in full. I pulled out my Festival Lead Dipplin deck.

Casual Standard Game: Festival Lead Dipplin vs. Miraidon ex Deluxe Battle Deck

Starting with a Cleffa in the active, my deck took a few turns to find and set up a Dipplin. The newbie attached some energy around, and didn't accomplish much. 

Once my deck finally found a Dipplin, the game was pretty swiftly over. 200 damage a turn overwhelmed all of their non-ex Basics, and while they did get a "baby" Miraidon set up to finally take a revenge KO, by that point I had set up additional Dipplins on my bench. A Lana's Aid to bring back the KO'd Applin meant that my bench was brought right back to full, and a Vitality Band was a little overkill, but meant that I could "one"-shot their Iron Valiant ex.

For a learning game with an unfamiliar deck, they did reasonably well enough. Unfortunately, my deck just decided to set up fairly rapidly and it was too much for them to do anything about.

Some time after this game, after a little bit of just hanging around, chatting with the other professors, and telling them a bit about changes I'd made to my Fairy Control GLC deck, I played against one of them in a Gym Leader Challenge game.

Casual Gym Leader Challenge Game: Fairy Control vs. Psychic Control - Win

This was my first game playing my Fairy deck after making some significant modifications to it.
I set up an early lock with Fairy Lock Klefki, but a Guzma and a lucky coin flip later, their Clefairy took out my Xerneas with a Mini-Metronome borrowing its own Bright Horns attack. I quickly grabbed it back with Rescue Stretcher, then returned to Fairy Lock-ing with Klefki after Bossing the Clefairy away. They eventually hit an Enhanced Hammer to remove my Double Turbo Energy, putting a stop to my Fairy Lock.

Some back and forth with Supporters eventually saw us get into dueling locks. They took my Xerneas out again with Clefable using a regular, no coin flips necessary Metronome, and we both made efforts to stall. Their Garbotoxin Garbodor turned off the abilities that many of my Fairies rely on, but ultimately I managed to get the win via mill by recurring Miss Fortune Sisters and Team Rocket's Handiwork.

It was a slower opponent that I was able to set up decently against, but the changes I made to the deck worked out incredibly well. I loved the way that the way the deck played with the new locks and the mill supporters.

We did start a second game, with them using a Dark deck utilizing Red Banquet Guzzlord, but they were called away to join the shop's weekly Standard play, so we had to call that game short after about three turns.

Pokémon League TCG Challenge - January 23rd, 2025

Tonight, the shop I go to on Thursdays was running a League Challenge for the Pokémon TCG.

I did not play tonight, because I was acting in my capacity as a Professor to help run the event.

I did however offer a newer, or technically returning player some advice for their Charizard deck during a bye round, as well as letting them take a look at my Festival Lead Dipplin list.

Then after the event, I spoke with another player about the Gym Leader Challenge format, given their interest in the format, and let them see my Fairy Control list to help sell them a little on the format.

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.

Pokémon League Locals - January 11th, 2025

At the shop I went to today, the League was running a League Challenge and a League Cup back to back. I did not participate in those events, but I did play a casual game with another professor who had been playing in the Challenge, although they had dropped from the competition. 

Casual Game - Festival Lead Dipplin vs. Gholdengo ex

On its face, this is a bad match-up for me. Turns out that Gholdengo's resistance to Grass isn't relevant super often, but against a deck whose only attackers are Grass-type Dipplins, it's incredibly relevant. 
I won the coin flip and went first so I could evolve as early as possible. My opponent, who is actually the person that gave me the list that I built, had a moment of forgetfulness about what Festival Lead allowed me to do, so I got two early Knock Outs against Gimmighouls. They then got a Gholdengo ex set up and things became much more difficult for me, especially with my Maximum Belt in my prizes. I tried to knock out a Fezadipiti ex, but didn't realize that it was weak to Fighting, rather than Grass, which meant it survived the hit quite comfortably.

The game wound up actually being a draw a few turns after. Without getting into detail, my opponent was in a somewhat sour mood for a number of reasons, and just didn't have the mental wherewithal to finish the game out.

The game ending in a draw aside, it was an interesting struggle to work around a bulky Metal-type who could resist my attacks, especially without my Maximum Belt available to help me get around that resistance.

Pokémon League Locals - January 9th, 2025

Locals tonight were a "normal" League night, playing 30 Minute, Best-of-1 Rounds. I was playing a Festival Lead Dipplin deck built around, well, the Festival Lead Dipplin from the Twilight Masquerade set, along with a suite of various other single prize Pokémon for support. The only "rule box" in my deck is my Ace Spec, Maximum Belt.

With 16 players to start out the night - one player dropped after round 2 - we played 4 rounds, and I went 1-3. Technically. My one win was getting a Bye round in round 3 after the drop.

Round 1 vs. Lugia VSTAR - Loss

This game went poorly for me right out of the gate. The Lugia player managed to have a practically ideal opening setup, and they had an Iron Hands ex set up on their second turn, at which point things were pretty swiftly over for me. They got two knock outs with Amp You Very Much by the time I was able to get a Dipplin set up to take down the Hands, and the turn after I did that, they had set up a Minccino, and then Lugia VSTAR itself.

I don't think I necessarily did anything wrong this game, I just had the misfortune of my opponent getting a near-perfect start.

Round 2 vs. Festival Lead Dipplin - Loss

Not quite a mirror match, as the other player had a very different take on the Festival Lead Dipplin list. Among other things, running Teal Mask Ogerpon ex and Hydrapple ex meant a completely different suite of "support" options on the bench compared to my purely single prize selection.

I lost in large part because I got stuck with a Thwackey in the active spot. My mistake was in evolving the Grookey that I was forced to start in my active spot, because while I was able to attach a Rescue Board to it, Thwackey had too expensive a retreat cost. Thwackey's Boom Boom Groove is an incredibly strong ability, but it can't do anything when it is in the active spot. I evolved it because I was worried about not getting a replacement when I played an Iono to get a new hand. Much like my Round 1 game against Lugia, two turns of my opponent managing to hit 2 prizes a turn before I could set up a counter-offensive was too much, and I couldn't catch up.

Round 3 Bye - "Win"

Bye round. No game to speak of. I spent the round chatting with one of the other professors about VGC and the fact that we've officially returned to Regulation G as of a few days ago.

Neither of us is excited.

Round 4 vs. Gardevoir ex - Loss

The only game that I didn't see myself get stuck behind an impenetrable lead, this game was an incredibly fun back and forth. We hit time in the round and went to turns, and we were on pace to wind up in a draw at the end of turns.

Then I searched my deck and realized that after playing a Super Rod or a Pal Pad, some sort of recovery card, I somehow got my deck and my discard pile swapped with one another. Annoyed at myself for making such a ridiculous mistake, but c'est la vie. The damage is done, and it was a casual League night, nothing was on the line.

This deck was a bit of an odd one, even compared to my own Festival Lead Dipplin or the Dipplin I played against in Round 2. Mostly because while it was a Gardevoir ex deck, it was an unusual Gardevoir that was running a variety of Pokémon that aren't normally found in Gardevoir, such as Espathra ex and Xatu.

Ironically, if it had been a more typical Gardevoir list, I probably would've done better against it, but the presence of the Espathra meant I had to work a lot around its ability in particular. My deck only runs 4 energy, since Dipplin's attack only costs a single energy typically, and with Thwackey and Bug-Catching Sets, I don't usually have any difficulty getting what I need.

Alas.

Still, in all, despite losing every actual game that I played, I still think that the Festival Lead Dipplin deck is a lot of fun. It's a cute little budget list, and while I had some unfortunate luck, the deck has some teeth to it. Enough to take to, say, a Regional? Maybe not. Your local League night, maybe even a Cup or Challenge, though? Probably.

I'm almost certainly going to keep playing it for a while at my locals, at least.