All of the events announced so far are available here, and 2 more US regionals are expected to be announced eventually: https://championships.pokemon.com/en-us/events/

I just reviewed the world championships top cut deck lists from the masters divisions

New this season: I have a coaching discord. In this discord you’ll have access to all of my Pokemon TCG knowledge and info - from deck lists, to metagame, to VOD reviews. I am also running lectures to help my community prepare for major events. More info below:

Join here: https://metafy.gg/@celio-s-network/members

Code DISCORD10 first 25 members get $10 off their first month.
https://metafy.gg/@celio-s-network/members

Here is my tier list for orlando

Link to video:

Link to metafy:

https://metafy.gg/guides/view/the-competitive-pokemon-tcg-masterclass-6RvXauR74sv

The full video is 24 minutes long and includes the following:

• how does the 2026 rotation change the format

• important cards that are gone

• what are the strongest cards and decks and why

• things I’ve learned from studying Japan’s post ro

• my top 2 decks ive been working on

• a few more deck lists

The competitive pokemon tcg masterclass includes over 9 hours of fundamental skills and lessons, always getting new updates.

https://metafy.gg/guides/view/the-competitive-pokemon-tcg-masterclass-6RvXauR74sv

Competitive Masterclass (7+ hours, free updates)

1-on-1 Coaching

And of course I post monthly videos on my youtube channel. I’m trying to post there more frequently again. I’ve been recovering from a combination of things including grief, cfs, and neuro-divergent burnout but I look forward to providing a steady amount of content again for the community soon.

I wrote a milwaukee guide last week and just put out a 1,000 word update to give you the most relevant metagame thoughts. Plenty of lists and ideas within it. Here is a free preview of my tier list and meta predictions.

If you’d like the full guide, you can get it here: https://metafy.gg/guides/view/mega-evolutions-standard-format-primer-4uZGqpsA6jq

In this guide I will be discussing the relevant new cards from Mega Evolutions, how the meta changes with the new set, and a handful of decks I’m testing for Milwaukee with lists included. I will update this guide on October 8th or 9th with my final thoughts for MIlwaukee before leaving for the event.

This is a free preview for my substack readers. If you enjoy this and want to read the full guide and have access to next week’s pre-tournament update, you can purchase it for just $7. I’ll leave the link after the free preview!

How New Sets Affect the Meta

An expansion typically (and in my opinion, ideally) will add or change a few things but will usually not completely change what the competitive environment looks like. I see it all the time - a new set will come out and people will behave as if the Tier S and Tier 1 decks from the previous meta have magically disappeared. This does happen in extreme cases where a new expansion brings several new competitive archetypes or hard counters to strategies or specific archetypes, but it should not be expected to happen.

New Cards

Here is my list of immediately relevant cards from Mega Evolutions. I will be leaving out cards that might be good later in their standard lifespan but not right now by my estimations. I will be omitting M Lucario ex since I can’t imagine anybody seriously piloting this card into a meta where Gardevoir was the bdif last week and probably still is. M Venusaur has potential but I don’t have high hopes for it competitively in this upcoming meta due to oneshot decks like dengo, bolt, and ceruledge being around as problem matchups with a combined meta share of at least 25%. M Venusaur could be built with crustle and relicanth for retreat locking to overcome these matchups but at that point loses the power level of Meganium and Teal Mask Ogerpon which would likely contribute to many of the deck’s hypothetical wins outside of these targeted matchups.

Tier 1 (will be in day 2 / top cut lists)

Ralts

Kirlia

Mega Gardevoir ex

Lunatone

Solrock

Yveltal

Mega Mawile ex

Mega Kangaskhan ex

Fighting Gong

Lillie’s Determination

Psyduck (promo)

Tier 2 (Less sure about these cards, but they have potential)

Delibird (could be played in a deck like Ceruledge since they choose first and play Jet energy)

Mystery Garden (Hard to justify using deck space in gardevoir towards this)

Risky Ruins (So far the deck it helps best is probably Archaludon but that isn’t very high tier)

Premium Power Pro (might be a 1-of in gholdengo rocks, could also buff Garchomp)

https://limitlesstcg.com/cards/MEG Link to the card images in case you need a refresher on any of them.

Why Are These Cards Good?

Ralts is an upgrade because it has a 1 energy attack to draw a card. This is much better than the previously used ralts if you’re dead drawing. If you’ve played Grimmsnarl a lot I’m sure you’ve had games where Filch (1 energy draw 1 on impidimp) has been the difference maker - sometimes 1 card is all you need.

Kirlia is an upgrade due to its HP going from 90 to 100 and because it has an attack that can search for 3 pokemon - again this is better than the previously used Kirlia’s attacks since 99% of times you attack with kirlia it is because you have no better options and this new attack will get you better options for next turn. The HP buff is incredibly important. 3 Adrena Brains or an Adrena Brain + Phantom Dive 60 are combinations that would KO a 90 HP Kirlia but not a 100 HP Kirlia. It can also come up as the difference when getting ™ Devo’d by Grimm, munki froslass, or Mirror.

M Gardevoir ex is definitely not an auto include in Gardevoir decks. However, it has 360 HP and an attack that can reach 300-400 damage so these attributes make it at the very least a consideration in most gardy decks. The main issue with this card is that it has to evolve from a ralts or kirlia. If megas went on top of their non-mega ex then this card would be much better since you should always have a Gardevoir ex on board and could just go into this for the final KO. However, your backup ralts/kirlias are typically around for evolving into gardevoir ex in case your first one gets ko’d. For this reason, M Gardy will often be more awkward than attacking with something like a Drifloon since M Gardy needs an open evolution line to evolve from.

The rest of the guide includes more of my reviews of the new cards, analysis of the metagame between pittsburgh to milwaukee, and several decks / deck lists and discussion on how I’m choosing a deck for Milwaukee. Remember this will also come with an update next week before I leave for the event. https://mfy.gg/guides/view/mega-evolutions-standard-format-primer-4uZGqpsA6jq

Thanks for reading!

In this guide, I will analyze the Milwaukee regionals results - explaining meta shifts and predicting future shifts for Melbourne, Santiago, Utrecht, Portland, and Bologna. I will include a tier list, my preferred deck lists, and my top picks moving forward.

To better understand how I look at this data, I wanted to give some prefacing explanations. I typically don’t look at the winrates and conversions of decks with very low meta shares as significant data. So for example: I won’t be talking about the 62.50% winrate that Banette Dusknoir had because only 1 person played it and went 5-3. But, I would talk about the 3 Roaring Moon Dudunsparce (and the 4th labeled as other which is Aiden Khus) since when including the 4th you have 3 of them making day 2 and Aiden placing 17th. With Aiden’s 17th place, the deck’s 10th at monterrey and the overall high winrate the deck has gotten makes it significant especially since this has been proven to be repeatable across multiple events.

Data from Limitless Labs

Milwaukee Regionals Day 1 Meta

^ Variant Grouping on

Dragapult is still the most popular archetype, gaining 2% since Atlanta. However, the variants of dragapult have flipped, with straight dragapult overtaking dragapult dusknoir by almost 3%. The disparity between these variants back at Atlanta was a difference of 7% in favor of Dragapult Dusknoir. We have consistently seen that straight dragapult maintains a better conversion rate and better winrate compared to dragapult dusknoir, and the playerbase has adjusted for that - with more people moving to the non-dusknoir build.

Dragapult Dusknoir has a higher ceiling of power than straight Draga, but straight Draga is more consistent and can tech according to the meta whereas Dragapult Dusknoir uses that tech space on 6-ish spots for Dusknoir (duskulls, dusclops, dusknoir(s), rare candy(s)). However, most successful dragapult dusknoir lists adapted to play a 7th energy which makes the deck more reliable at finding energy attachments. Straight Draga had typically been favored vs Draga Dusk since Straight Draga has more reliable energy attachments, munkidori, and more supporters. However, in Day 2 of Milwaukee Dragapult Dusknoir had an astronomical 73% winrate vs Straight Draga. I think we were previously seeing Straight Draga come out on top because the lists and players were better, but now Draga Dusk lists are playing the 7th energy and a supporter lineup that deals with budew better which seems to have completely flipped the matchup. Draga Dusknoir is also more favored into the gardevoir matchup. However, Straight Draga did boast a 60% winrate vs Joltik Box in day 2 which is miles better than Draga Dusk’s 26% wr into that matchup.

Joltik Box was nonexistent at Atlanta and has exploded onto the scene with almost 12% in Milwaukee. Joltik Box is likely going to stay around, since it gives you the most output for the least input. The deck carries the player more than any other deck in the meta right now. It has a very low skill-floor (minimum level of skill needed to be considered proficient) and a pretty low skill ceiling as well (the maximum potential for improvement and mastery). I posit that Raging Bolt saw a drop off in play because many people who played bolt prior or would have played raging bolt to this event switched to Joltik. Ironically, Raging Bolt has a good Joltik matchup and ended up winning the whole event.

With Day 1 and 2 combined, Joltik Box (51.85% wr) had its best winrates against Zoroark, Tera Box, Dragapult, Gholdengo Dudunsparce, Dragapult Charizard, and Poison Archaludon.

However, in day 2 the field became worse for it since it was now surrounded by better players and better decks - meaning less free wins just for setting up and announcing amp you very much.

If you’d like to read the entire guide, here is the link!

This is where I'm currently at on raging bolt and I wanted to share reasoning for some of the card inclusions.

Crispin is better than I thought, especially under item lock. This deck can suffer to item lock especially early game when you don't have energy in the discard pile. It creates situations where you can't get anything to help you with Noctowl because most of your deck is item cards, which is where Crispin comes in. Crispin is also like a backup professor sada's and can be used for accelerating energy to Teal mask, Cornerstone, or Mew ex if needed.

Energy switch can help you get energy onto a Pokemon your opponent might think is otherwise impossible, such as setting up a cornerstone or mew ex attack in 1 turn with crispin + energy switch. Sometimes opponents will see that you have all of your fighting energy on board, mostly when you use slither wing, and they might bring a raging bolt into the active which is unable to attack. But energy switch can move that energy around if needed.

A combination of Cornerstone + Slither Wing allows you to have a fighting chance against wall decks, especially since we have night stretcher and super rod to reuse these pokemon and ample energy acceleration with Crispin + energy switch for cornerstone since its not an ancient pokemon.

Slither Wing is good for KO’ing pikachu ex (since the burn will proc and knock it out after resolute heart happens) as well as a wall like mimikyu or even Fezandipiti ex which is weak to fighting.

I want to fit a jamming tower in, but havent identified what I want to cut for it yet - possibly the pal pad.

so - The above deck list and explanation actually comes from a post in my brand new community where members have access to my decklists, metagame predictions, and discussions with me (I also encourage members to bother me for a deck list if I haven’t covered an archetype you’re interested in!). I’m also holding an Atlanta Regionals prep class that is free for tier 2 members, so check that all out at this link

Post-Rotation Tier List

I created an early post-rotation tier list here:

If you want to watch it and hear my reasonings please do! But I’ll also post a screenshot of the final tier list from the video here.

Since then, my thoughts have changed on a couple of decks. I think I’d put terapagos boufalant (represented by terapagos) and Flareon down a tier, and I’d move Gardevoir up a tier.

More recently I uploaded this mega guide. Its over 65 slides of post rotation information including staple cards, techs, 30 deck lists, and an updated tier list. Check it out!

Additionally, I have made some very in-depth FREE guides on specific archetypes over on youtube, here is the one I made for Tera Box.

I’ve already made 10 posts in the decklists section of my community covering updates to deck lists and my reasonings. Much more to come over there, so definitely check it out if you enjoy how I explain things, my opinions on the meta, and you want to stay updated with all of that!

https://metafy.gg/@celio-s-network

Btw you may notice that you can no longer monetarily support me here on substack. I will still be using substack as a way to engage my community and keep you updated with what I’m doing and free content time to time like today’s raging bolt list and analysis. I dislike taking money from people unless I know I am giving them exponential value on their investment, which is why it has taken me so long to curate a community like this on metafy and I am putting a lot of work into it.

Thanks for reading, talk to you again next time!

While regional and international championships are the main events that everyone looks to for deck lists and metagame, they’re not abundant enough to be your only source of information. For example: you could review the results from San Antonio Regionals which was not too long ago, but if you’re attending the Puerto Rico SPE or EUIC a week later, these San Antonio results are already partially invalid due to the legality of Prismatic Evolutions adding a very impactful card into the meta.

Even without new sets becoming legal, metagames develop quicker than ever due to the ever growing amount of information available online. The largest accelerator of metagame development was the innovation of play.limitless.tcg.com, an online platform for hosting, playing, and viewing results of tournaments. Within this website you can find decklists, matchup percentages, and metagame shares.

Additionally over on limitlesstcg.com/tournaments/jp you can now find a database of City League results. City Leagues are the Japanese equivalent to league cups, but almost all of them cap out at 64 players and are one of few ways to earn points for worlds in their thriving competitive scene with a lack of point earning opportunities. What’s so great about these city league results is that they’re usually 1-3 months ahead of English set releases, so we can look slightly into the future to start preparing for our next format.

Why does this all matter?

Discovery

There is no invention in trading card games when it comes to deck lists, only discovery. Every card combination is already out there, waiting for someone to discover its potential. I’ve seen several ideas, combos, and entire deck archetypes premier in online events and city leagues, but perusing through all of the results may be overwhelming for most.

This is why I often make videos on my channel highlighting lists and ideas from events like these, so you don’t have to rummage through piles of deck lists unknowing what is significant.

Online Tournaments

I’m usually looking for online events with 200+ players, the “Late Night” event series are typically good for this.

One of my favorite things to do with play limitless is look and see what matchups the successful players played against. You’ll see above that I clicked on first place to see their matchups. Its good to check to make sure they played against good decks and didnt just get their wins against unserious decks. Sometimes you’ll see a list missing a tech or playing a weird card, you can go look at their matchups to see if it helps those cards make more sense. For example: maybe a drago didnt play sinnoh so you inspect their matchups to see if they hit any lugias and if so, were they able to win?

Furthermore, not only can you look at matchups but you can look at the metagame share. Keep in mind that many people take these tournaments casually, so they may not be piloting their decks with high focus and they may enter with deck lists they would never play in a major IRL tournament.

You can also look at the overall metagame - this data is pulling from 105 tournaments with 6594 players and 14578 matches played!

From there you can click an archetype and see its matchups. I consider matchups with 50+ games played to be semi-valid, and matchups with 100+ games played to be valid.

At trainerhill.com you can further analyze the results. Here we see on the left the meta shares of decks from the filtered time, and on the right we see the shares for top 8 meaning how much of top 8 were taken up by x deck.

There is also a matchup spreadsheet generator on trainer hill. The above chart uses the same filters from the previous meta share information.

Japanese events

Above is a chart briefly explaining the differences between tpci events and japanese events.

You can go through each city league (theres a LOT) and search for decks that interest you, or you can search by card.

Simply search for or click on a card in the limitless database, then click the button on the bottom right that says city league decklists.

From there you’ll get all the city league deck lists that included the selected card!

You can also find major event results from japan on limitless, such as champions league which are now reaching 5000 players in attendance.

These are best of 1 events all the way through, so keep that in mind. More complicated decks may falter to prizing pieces or misplays, while more linear and fast decks (archaludon, ancient box, miraidon, lugia) will fatigue players less over the course of a very long event and be less prone to prizing enough cards to make the game unplayable for them.

Conclusion

I certainly weigh the results of an online event or a city league less than I would a regionals or internationals, but sometimes you have to make do with what you have. At a time like this, online events, city leagues, and a single champions league are all we have to go off of until the puerto rico spe and then EUIC which will likely show us a clear picture of what the meta actually is and which deck archetypes are the best. I used these resources to form my own opinions about what the best decks are, which you can watch the video for here:

Learn more about metagaming, deck selection, and everything else in my competitive Pokémon tcg masterclass. I designed this class to teach you everything I know about the game at a competitive level, and you’ll keep it with free updates for life. Check it out here: https://metafy.gg/guides/view/the-competitive-pokemon-tcg-masterclass-6RvXauR74sv

I also offer one-on-one coaching, which you can find here: https://metafy.gg/communities/celios-network-sahozuCW8HE/sessions

^This student has made day 2 twice in a row now! Went 7-1-1 in day one for the first time as well.

^This student (his father wrote the review) has since WON an international championships!

Thanks for reading!

My masterclass has been updated again, now including quizzes with questions, answers, and lessons including video explanations. I’ve just started uploading these and you should expect more in February for Budew format, then again in april for post rotation.

Here is a preview of what this content looks like:

And of course a peek at all the other content in this course:

If you’re curious about my pokemon tcg masterclass, here is some more info!

🔍 What You'll Learn:

✅ How to build Winning Decks.

✅ Advanced strategies and decision-making skills

✅ Tournament prep tips from decades of experience

✅ What is the meta-game and how to analyze it.

✅ And so much more!

🎯 Why this course?

Perfect for beginners looking to transition into competitive play

Great for parents to learn along with their children!

Even experienced players will find valuable strategies and insights.

Includes forever access, free updates, and a group to ask questions in.

🔍"Will this actually make me a better player"

I have taught many students of all kinds - young and old, new and experienced, regional and international champions! (You can read testimonies for my coaching here: https://metafy.gg/@celio-s-network/about)

🚀 Become the player you know you can be 🚀

You can purchase the competitive pokemon tcg masterclass here: https://metafy.gg/guides/view/the-competitive-pokemon-tcg-masterclass-6RvXauR74sv-6RvXauR74sv

Expectations

At some point, you started playing pokemon cards because it looked fun or interesting - so you naturally assume that practicing to get better will be fun because you’re playing pokemon cards, right? This is what kills the flame.

If your goal is to get better at the game and learn skills, then fun and interest will not be the priority. Building fundamental skills and honing existing skills in anything will typically be difficult, often boring work. If you end up having fun while doing it, then that is great and it is possible. But go in with no expectations of enjoyment, just plan to do good, focused work.

Sometimes my practice or oftentimes research into the meta or matchup concepts will be really interesting to me, while other times the decks or strategies or trends bore me for whatever reason. As a competitive player (but this season mostly as a teacher and creator) I keep up with the game in a lot of ways. Online results, city league results, reading articles, listening to content, playing the game, analyzing deck lists - sure a lot of it is sick because i love pokemon but I certainly didn’t love pokemon in 2020 and if anything I was playing even more back then because I was honing my fundamental skills and also working, even when it wasn’t fun or enjoyable or the first thing on my mind. What drives me to practice when I’m not having fun?

…

The rest of this article is exclusively available in my masterclass on Metafy. And I wanted to take this opportunity to tell you about this course.

The goal of my competitive masterclass on metafy is to have everything you will ever need to know about the fundamentals and core skills of the game in one place for a one time price. I’ve been coaching pokemon tcg for over 4 years now, and along this journey I’ve developed systems and lessons that work. Instead of teaching you these lessons over multiple sessions, you can learn it all at your own pace and have the content forever. I’m also regularly updating this course with member requested content and lessons I am constantly building - I will continue updating this as long as I am involved in competitive Pokemon tcg.

In this course you will learn the following (to mention a few topics)

• Decision Making

• Evaluating Board States

• Deck Building

• Deck Selection

• Meta Gaming

• How to learn matchups

• Confidence building

• Psychological theories to change your mindset

Check it out here: https://metafy.gg/guides/view/the-competitive-pokemon-tcg-masterclass-6RvXauR74sv

Thanks for reading today!

Below is a 55 card skeleton which includes the cards I deem necessary and staple for Regidrago in this format. I wanted to talk about some of the more advanced and technical concepts within Regidrago. This article is completely free. If you enjoy this, please share and keep an eye out for future pieces of content like this from me. I have 1-on-1 coaching as well as a fundamentals masterclass available here: https://metafy.gg/@celio-s-network/about

55 card skeleton

My preferred list

A large part of the awesome power of Regidrago VSTAR comes from the choices you make as its pilot. You want to be cognizant of all of the cards, abilities, combinations, and otherwise effects that are available to you at any time.

The namesake of the deck as well as the main attacker - as well as your deck’s only usable VStar Power - Regidrago VSTAR. Regidrago V is a very poor starting pokemon since it has 3 retreat and in the event you’re against a deck like Raging Bolt, you don’t want your regidrago to be the pokemon they KO on turn 1. Teal Mask Ogerpon ex is your best 2-prize starter since you can teal dance an energy to it, have the option to retreat for 1 energy, and then still have your manual attachment left over. (Mew ex is not your best 2-prize starter in a blind matchup because its a liability in some matchups ie: the mirror bc it can open up a double trifrost win con). This is why we only play 3 regidrago v instead of 4 even though its the main attacker. I would never considering changing this 3-3 line to anything else.

Regidrago V’s Celestial Roar should almost never be used. Dragon Laser is optimally used when you’re taking a turn 1 going 2nd KO that neutralizes a threat with little to no threat of retaliation from the opponent (KO-ing a ralts vs gardy, KO-ing the only pidgey vs pidgeot control). If you’re in a position to use Dragon Laser but could interchangeably use cleffa’s grasping draw, calculate if that early prize will change the amount of turns it takes you to win, stifles your opponent completely, and if your hand is good enough for next turn without grasping draw.

Another use of Dragon Laser is to set up multi-knockout turns for later. For example:

Let’s say we’re in a mirror match. Your opponent ends turn 1 going second with Drago V in the active, Drago V, Squawkabilly, 2 Ogerpons, and Fez on the bench. If you have a backup drago v on the bench and with your active drago v use Dragon laser to put 130 on drago V and 30 on squawk - you’ve just opened a potential 6-prize turn in 2 more turns. Even if your opponent kos your active (which would require lost impact so they’re more likely to gust around and kill something with phantom dive or rolling iron), you should still be fine since you just need two more attacks to win the game and you still have your vstar power available. Assuming they evolve into drago vstar, their vstar now has 150 HP remaining and squawk has 130 HP remaining. Next turn you gust up Fez (or ogerpon if they dont have fez) and phantom dive putting 20 on Squawk and 40 on Drago vstar. At this point your opponent has Squawk with 110 remaining, Fez or Pon with 10 remaining, and Drago VSTAR with 110 remaining. From there your final turn just needs to consist of a tri frost (if damaged fez), a boss plus trifrost (if damaged pon), or a Hawlucha ping on pon + tri frost for 6 prizes on the final turn. I used this exact sequence to win game 2 of my win and in to Day 2 at Baltimore Regionals 2024.

Of course, Regidrago VSTAR has Apex Dragon which will be the main attack, but it comes with a lot of options.

In my opinion you only need Dragapult, Giratina, Goodra, and Kyurem. While Alolan Egg is really good against Raging Bolt, I have long thought that matchup was closer to 50/50 than it is typically denoted.

Kyurem’s Trifrost is the most volatile attack available. You can end games from turn 2, piece together a 6 prize turn, or throw the game with this attack (more about throwing the game later). The example above with dragon laser > phantom dive > trifrost is just one of the unorthodox ways Kyurem can be used. I am commonly looking for 4 prize or 6 prize turns against namely Regidrago and Klawf, but always keep an eye out for checkmate scenarios regardless of the matchup. This is less often viable against Raging Bolt and Miraidon since they play switch carts and/or bravery charms that can mess with the math - but it becomes viable against those decks as well if you can place damage in a way that a single switch cart wont save them OR they have used the amount of switch carts you believe their deck to run.

Kyurem’s Trifrost should never be used if A) you’ve used legacy star already and B) this use of trifrost doesn’t immediately end the game or put yourself in such a position that you’ve mapped out your win to be very very likely. If you haven’t used legacy star yet, you can be more liberal with trifrost but always make sure that its worth the energy. Similar, lost impact can sometimes be a throw if you could have maneuvered the prize trade in a way that doesn’t cost energies. It can also be a throw because its the easiest way for regidrago to go 2-2-2 which seems good, but actually isn’t sometimes because it gives the opponent guaranteed procs of Flip the Script.

Example: My opponent has a Raging Bolt in active that I could lost impact for 2 prizes. If they have a bench of raging bolt, 2 pons, and a fez, its very likely I’m going to get return KO’d - so I would lost zone energies from the active. However, I am much more often going for the following play: Gust up fez and roll iron. This way they’re not getting to draw from flip the script since i didnt KO anything, they need to retreat fez now, AND since I rolled iron they need to discard 2 extra energies to KO with bellowing thunder. Assuming they get the KO, the prize trade will now be in their favor 2-6. This is when we ideally go Iono + hawlucha fez and ko active with rad zard. The prize trade is now 2-2 and the opponent got iono’d to 2 with no fez, likely no energy on board, and we have a single prizer active.

When you break it down, taking prizes in the form of 2-2-2, 0-4-2, 0-2-4, or 0-0-6 all result in taking a total of 6 prizes by the 3rd turn of meaningful attacks. Based on the matchup and what the opponent’s deck is capable of, it will sometimes be advantageous to “bank” your knockouts for a later turn to avoid proccing fez, avoid giving the opponent a bench space, avoid activating unfair stamp, or avoid getting iono’d to 4 or 2 instead of 6. Don’t be discouraged from simple prize maps of 2-2-2 if you’ve considered your options and that's the best route to victory. But, once you become comfortable and confident with 4 and 6 prize turns, you’ll level up as a drago pilot.

Hawlucha Math

Hawlucha is really versatile in the amount of matchups and situations it can assist in. Hawlucha can be tricky to use since it has to put its damage on benched pokemon, but often you will use hawlucha to prepare for a future attack, or you’ll attack leaving them with 10 health and use the hawlucha on a later turn. Iron Bundle being in the deck can help if you need to move the active to the bench for hawlucha or for cleaning up with Phantom Dive.

• Myriad Leaf Shower for 4 energy does 150, + hawlucha ping 160 ko Squawk

• Rolling Iron or Phantom Dive anything with 210 (ogerpon, fez), + Hawlucha ping = 210

• Phantom Dive Lugia for 200 + 3/3 on archeops, hawlucha ping bring the chops to 4 each, tri frost next turn for 4 prizes. (this is negated by vguard and mist - im choosing to not play sinnoh but if you want to respect lugia you should play sinnoh).

• Lost impact a bolt with charm + hawlucha ping =290

• Ping + Phantom Dive KOs anything with 70 (charmander, ralts, manaphy)

• Ping Bloodmoon Ursaluna then rad zard it = 260

Conclusion

I wanted to put this resource out there before San Antonio and before Prismatic Evolution (hopefully) shakes things up with budew. I didn’t have time to do matchups but I hope this has helped you understand more advanced plays with Regidrago!

https://www.youtube.com/@CeliosNetwork

https://x.com/Celios_Network

https://metafy.gg/@celio-s-network/about

Practice. 

This one is painstakingly obvious, but necessary to discuss. “Pokemon TCG is just a card game right? The rules are pretty simple, right?”. I see many people enter the competitive scene with this attitude and expect to become a pro level player in their first season or two. Now, while that CAN happen, it's not expected nor is it common. Looking at some of the most consistently high performers in our game today: Azul, Tord, Rahul, Ian, they all have a massive amount of experience under their belt. Regardless of natural talent, they are at this level because of how many games they’ve played, how many decks they’ve learned, and their levels of focus, dedication, and ambition.

However, it is also possible that you play as long as these players and get all of these years of experience, but still fail to reach the potential you believe you have. 

I can relate to that. I’ve been attending tournaments since 2007, but never fully dedicated myself to the game until 2017. I won some locals and had some placements at states and regionals, but nothing of too much notability. If you’d like to read how I managed to go from a player with years and years of experience and very little to show for it in terms of accomplishments, to a worlds competitor with a regionals top 8 and consistent day 2s, I have a free article linked here expounding on this: https://celiosnetwork.substack.com/p/reach-your-pokemon-tcg-goals 

The simplest way to begin turning experience into results is becoming more focused. I suggest reading this article on Deliberate Practice: https://jamesclear.com/beginners-guide-deliberate-practice 

Confidence.

For improving your in-game skills, practice, repetition, and systems that work are the most important pieces. For using those skills to their highest value, you must become as confident as you are competent. Your confidence (your belief in your skills) and your competence (your skills) are both utilized to their fullest when they are in harmony with each other. Your goal should be to build your skills until you become confident in them for major events.

I spend most of my productive time developing evidence based systems that work and teaching them. I’ve recently published an all-inclusive masterclass that teaches in-game skills, mental fundamentals, and how to unlock your potential with confidence loops and proven systems for simplifying in-game decisions. This course features over 5 hours of lessons and examples, and you can check it out here: https://metafy.gg/courses/view/the-competitive-pokemon-tcg-masterclass-6RvXauR74sv 

If you’re interested in any of my educational pokemon tcg services, my full profile including customer testimonies is linked here: https://metafy.gg/@celio-s-network 

If you’re not interested in investing in your competitive pokemon tcg journey right now, thats totally fine! You can improve and reach your goals without paid services, however these paid options will accelerate your growth and understanding of the game and save you a lot of time otherwise spent on trial and error. 

I have more free resources available on my substack here, including these two articles in addition to the previous links in this post

https://celiosnetwork.substack.com/p/the-mental-game-is-the-whole-game?r=1iumz4

https://celiosnetwork.substack.com/p/you-are-a-top-player-if-you-choose 

And of course, my youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@CeliosNetwork

Thanks for reading today, and if you have any questions or would like me to expand on anything just leave it in the comments!

When entering a “new” metagame, it is important to focus on the intrinsic qualities of your deck. “Is my deck consistent and reliable?” “Is my deck inherently powerful regardless of my opponents’ strategies?” “Am I confident in my competence with this archetype and decklist?” are all questions you should ask yourself. The inverse of this would be choosing your deck based on the predicted metagame and preparing your deck to specifically function against x, y, and z meta decks - which is sometimes a worthy strategy but rarely wise to do into the premier event for a new set of cards with an undefined meta.

I dont expect the Dortmund or Joinville Regionals metagame to be centralized around any 1 deck the way that Worlds and Baltimore were focused on Regidrago VSTAR. Instead of predicting how many of each deck you will play against, its better to prepare matchup concepts and practice against each of these decks expecting to hit each of them at least once:

Charizard Pidgeot
Raging Bolt
Regidrago
Dragapult Pidgeot
Lugia
Stall (definitely the least popular of these 6, but still worth practicing against! Stall gets a lot of its wins by beating players who are unpracticed against it)

Once you’ve become comfortable with your matchups against these decks, you could also consider the following:

Terapagos Pidgeot Dusknoir
Gardy
Pidgeot Control
Iron Thorns

If you’re worried because your deck has some bad matchups included in the above 10 archetypes, well - that’s just card games. You’re not going to beat everything. And even the matchups that look bad aren’t 0-100, that is also just card games! Don’t psych yourself out because there are stall or control decks around. First you need to actually get paired into them, and then like I said, every match has some percentage of a win condition available, even the roughest ones. 

With such a wide metagame including a dozen or more reasonably competitive decks, I suggest you put your time and energy into understanding your deck better than anyone else rather than looking for a tech card or a secret list or meta call as an easy answer to success. Now, if you are puzzled as to which deck you should play out of the decks you’re comfortable piloting at a high level, lets move onto the next section.

What to Play

This tier list roughly depicts my evaluation of where each deck stands going into this weekend. According to my evaluations: Tier S is most likely to win the event, Tier A is expected to be in top 8 contention, Tier B is expected to be in day 2, Tier C likely won’t make it to day 2 or do poorly in day 2, and Tier D are fake decks. For more info and analysis on the tier list, here’s my youtube video discussing it:

Ultimately, not much has changed with the release of stellar crown. The biggest changes are:

• Dragapult Pidgeot is a real deck now with sparkling crystal and crispin. There is real reason to play this instead of Regidrago VSTAR.

• Regidrago VSTAR is not undisputed BDIF due to Zard, Bolt, and Draga all getting buffs (combination of briar, crispin, crystal) and new Terapagos decks and Palkia decks which are favored into Regidrago going first. 

• Zard can aggressively end games in 2 attacking turns with a combination of dusknoir and briar. Be aware that Terapagos Dusknoir decks are also looking to end the game in 2 attacking turns. This is not the main strategy of zard but it's possible. 

• Ancient Box will likely be scared off by Briar.

• Quad Cornerstone/Noivern has zero answers to dragapult and also has a shaky matchup into regidrago with cologne, so this wall style deck is likely dead.

If you’re locked into any of the decks in my S or A tier then I’d say you’re already good to go. Personally, I’d play Zard, Bolt, or Drago and I have lists for each of them below. 

The main matchups where Briar is good are Zard and Ancient Box - and if I’m expecting Ancient box to be played less I’d rather switch to a tech that covers more ground. This tech is 2 Judge + Tomb which is good against Zard, Stall, Draga (less so because they have recon directive turn 2), and Lugia. You could easily fit briar into this list by cutting Bundle, 3rd Stop, or 2nd Judge. I think 3 Stop or 2 Stop 1 Vac is correct due to League Headquarters being teched into stage 2 decks.

Mist Energy is great to circumvent ™ Devo and sometimes you’ll high roll into it early to protect a pidgey from phantom dive. I’m choosing first so 3 nest ball is good for consistent set ups. Thornton is nonnegotiable - I’ve used it SO much in testing. I’ve used Briar enough to keep it in the deck, but I also understand people wanting to cut it because sometimes the threat of Briar makes your opponent play around it anyway. League HQ + Iono or Stamp is a big late game play vs bolt, terapagos, miraidon, etc. 

I’ve played Drago until the wheels fell off. If you want to cut 4th Earthen Vessel for 2nd Draga or 3rd Iono like the Japanese players do be my guest, but I’ve been remiss to do so. This is almost identical to what myself and Ian Robb played to Baltimore, except Cologne is back in to respect stall and cornerstone. DO NOT CUT CLEFFA.

Thanks for reading!

Preparation

The biggest factor of your tournament is preparation, which comes before the tournament even begins. Preparation will look different for everyone based on your experience, goals, and commitment to the game. Preparation results in confidence, and confidence results in better tournament performance. If you are a competitive player attending events with the goal of doing your best, earning points, and winning - you should prepare until you are confident no matter who or what deck you are playing against. I’m going to stress confidence a lot throughout this article.

People talk about the “mental game” or the “mental aspect” of pokemon tcg… but the entire game is the mental game. If you’re not composed, confident, and aware then you will not play well. This is different from an athletic event like soccer or playing an instrument like guitar in which even if your mental is off, you can still try to push through with your physical skills. In Pokemon TCG if your mental is off, your entire game is off. So prioritize your mental health - and for the sake of pokemon tcg: specifically your self-awareness and confidence. 

There are some basic things, but I’ve also come up with sort of “mind hacks” that help me prevent stress and nerves from affecting my tournament performance. 

The Basics of Beneficial Mental Health Practices for Pokemon TCG

I have such a poor sleep schedule, I often say that my schedule doesn’t exist. However, I make efforts to correct this up to a week in advance prior to major events. There’s nothing worse for me than going from my typical lifestyle of falling asleep whenever, to 4 AM the morning of the event and I haven’t slept yet. Depending on your work, school, and general life structure it might be challenging to correct this, but do your best to get your body’s rhythm in a spot where you’ll get at least 7 hours of sleep before waking up for tournament day. 

I personally don’t like to eat in the middle of a large event, so I enjoy tournaments without lunch breaks. Even so, I make sure to stay hydrated and drink beverages with calories and nutrients in them to keep my body going and also the occasional snack. At the bare minimum, stay hydrated and put some sort of vitamins and calories in your body. I really like Mio energy to put in bottled water because it has both caffeine and vitamin B12.

This isn’t a psych class, but I want to make sure my readers are aware of Automatic Thoughts. Automatic thoughts are negative self-talk that happens automatically in response to a task, obstacle, or other thought. A Pokemon-related example of an automatic thought would be “You can’t beat this person” or “you will lose round 1” or “You’re going to misplay”. The most important thing to know about these thoughts is that they are typically irrational. If you’ve ever been in a dream that seemed real, but you noticed something that identified it as being a dream, you can tackle these negative thoughts the same way. Automatic thoughts are anxious, negative, and self-attacking - and most importantly will typically have little to no logical grounds to stand on. Identify that the negative self-talk doesn’t have reasoning or logic as to why you will lose or misplay, and shut it down. It’s easier said than done, but this is the start to shutting down those intrusive anxious thoughts that will affect your game. 

My “Mind Hacks” for Pokemon TCG

These are the ways I control my state of mind and circumvent nerves and stress. The way we look at things and perceive things is really everything. Reality is just what we are perceiving, so shifting that perception can make all the difference.

A tournament is nothing but the next X amount of games you will play. 

Players will build up a tournament as this huge isolated event and it freaks people out. Think about the last 20 or 30 games you played - the upcoming regional or IC is just like that - just structured differently. Now obviously there are stakes involved, but if we can reach a point where we practice and compete the same way, we can circumvent stress and nerves. In the weeks leading up to your event, log your games - wins and losses are fine but make sure you track how many times you misplay in each game. If you’re not happy with your W/L and/or misplay rates in the last X amount of games, then play X amount of games again and look to improve those rates. 

Practice as if you are playing in the tournament, and play in the tournament as if it were practice. 

The structure for major events is 9 fifty minute swiss rounds of best ⅔. To the best of your ability, practice in that structure. Even if you and a friend (or you and your coach) can only get 1 or 2 or 3 rounds in, practice as if you are playing in the tournament which you are preparing for. That means set a timer, that means no friendly banter, that means no taking back or discussing plays, no checking your phone and scrolling twitter - simulate the tournament experience as much as possible and desensitize yourself to it until it’s the norm. And most importantly: play with focus, intent, and all of the stress and nerves you would experience in an event. Make decisions like the regional championship depends on it. 

I’ll say it again: Practice like its the tournament, and play the tournament like its practice. This means you should practice until you’d be happy with your practice if it was your tournament performance. Then just replicate that in the tournament… like its practice! This is a training method I used for myself to wrap up worlds invites at NAIC 18 and NAIC 19 which were last-chance high-stress events for me. They were made much easier because I practiced with timers and with weight in all of my games and decisions, so I was able to replicate that in the tournament with confidence. 

Take it one round 1 at a time. Do your best not to think about rounds 2-9 - put all your focus in round 1, then round 2, then round 3, etc. 

Why is Confidence so Important?

What if we were as good as the twitch chat? Funny to think about, but spectators are often quick to jump on misplays and identify the correct lines of play. What makes the spectator so much better than the player? Well, the player is in a high-stress environment. There is spectator bias due to different environments and different stakes. 

Without fail, players will finish a round and begin to recollect on mistakes they made. Most of the time, the player hasn’t learned anything new between the time between the round ending and 5 minutes later when they identify their mistakes… So why did they make the mistake? Well the stressful environment of being in a tournament is typically the culprit. But the ability to identify mistakes should give you all the confidence you need to not make those mistakes. Its pretty paradoxical the more you think about it, but essentially you need to enter the state of post-match clarity while still in the match, or another way to think about it is entering the state of someone with spectator bias outside of the match. 

Become vulnerable and put all of your preparation on the table. Let go of your reflective self-consciousness and be fully enveloped in the game. 

“Reflection is a precondition for self-critical deliberation. If we are to subject our different beliefs and desires to a critical, normative evaluation, it is not sufficient simply to have immediate first-personal access to the states in question” (Edmund Husserl - Austrian-German philosopher). 

You can take from this quote what you will, but my interpretation is that immediately using your self reflection in the moment is inefficient and harmful. It is like reading the first piece of evidence in a case without taking an objective and subjective look at the full picture and context. In a game of pokemon cards, you should trust yourself;  your preparation. To do this you need confidence, and you need control to push away those second guesses, self-doubt, and automatic thoughts. It all comes back to proper practice and desensitizing yourself to the tournament experience. Begin to practice like you’re at the tournament, and you’ll compete at the tournament like it is simply practice.

How Do I Build Confidence

Of course, one of the answers is practice. But my last piece of advice is matchup conceptualizations, which sound more complicated than it needs to be. 

Writing these matchup concepts do two things: 1. If you’re having trouble writing a matchup concept that means you need to play the matchup until you understand it more, and 2. Once you’ve completed a matchup concept for a matchup and you can follow it logically and confirm this information is relevant and accurate, you have this entire plan ready for when you come up against this matchup - therefore you can confidently make decisions from the “playbook” in your head. I suggest keeping these concepts on paper or on a second monitor when you’re testing at home online until you can recall the concepts without looking at them. 

Template for Matchup Concepts:

• Ideal turn 1 board/plays

• Ideal turn 2 board/plays

• What is my opponent trying to do on turn 1 and 2?

• What is my ideal prize map? What are ways the opponent can play around this?

• What is my opponent’s ideal prize map? How can I play around it?

• Are there any long-term plans I can set up early in the game and finish later (think damage spread combos)

• Important techs for the matchup

• Techs the opponent might have that I should watch out for

• Specific lines of play that frequently lead to wins

• Specific lines of play that are risky and shouldn’t be done unless theres no other option (remember that passing or using a support attack like Cleffa’s grasping draw can often let you “take a turn off” instead of overextending.

I spend most of my productive time developing evidence based systems that work and teaching them. I’ve recently published an all-inclusive masterclass that teaches in-game skills, mental fundamentals, and how to unlock your potential with confidence loops and proven systems for simplifying in-game decisions. This course features over 5 hours of lessons and examples, and you can check it out here: https://metafy.gg/courses/view/the-competitive-pokemon-tcg-masterclass-6RvXauR74sv 

World’s Results

Lets begin with what happened at worlds. Day 1 we saw Regidrago lead in popularity by a mile which should not have been a surprise to many. I think we’ll see this concentration of Regidrago drop down to about 14-18% at Baltimore. 

Charizard and Raging Bolt will likely battle for the number 2 and 3 spots, while Lugia and Ancient box should fill out spots 4 and 5. In addition, I expect miraidon and Roaring Moon to both uptick in play, likely roaring moon more since it got 2nd place and i personally believe its a better deck than miraidon. Gardevoir is still viable, but in a massive event of mixed skill levels I think Gardevoir will be fighting to make the top 6 graphic. Because of these predictions - you should be prepared to play against these 6 decks:

Regidrago
Charizard Pidgeot (likely with Dusclops/Dusknoir)

Raging Bolt

Lugia

Ancient Box

Roaring Moon

If you have the time and energy to prepare matchups against 4 more decks, I would suggest spending time thinking about these matchups:

Snorlax

Iron Thorns

Gardevoir

Miraidon

Deck Selection

I have 3 rules of deck selection. Your pool of decks to choose from should check all 3 of these boxes:

1. Conceptualization

2. Functionality

3. Feasability

Conceptualization: Do you understand your matchups against the top 6 decks I mentioned? Do you understand the intrinsic functioning of your deck such as prize mapping, ideal turn 1 boards, prize checking, and common ways opponents can play around your strategy?

Functionality: Your deck works consistently and reliably. If you need to jam so many techs into your deck to keep it alive in the meta or your strategy is not focused, then consistency will suffer.

Feasibility: how good is it into the perceived metagame? This is the least important since metagaming for day 1 of a 2500+ person event is a crapshoot. Still, you would like to have some favored matchups, some even matchups, and a minimal amount of unfavored matchups against the top 6 decks i listed. 

If you cant check the box on all 3 of these for a deck, then that deck is probably not the play for you. Its better to play a deck which you understand the concepts for that is slightly worse into the perceived meta, then a deck with a better matchup spread which you’re not confident in piloting.

Note: for juniors and seniors you can spike a high placement just by knowing your deck better than the rest of the field, keeping it high consistency, and having unique gameplans into the top matchups. Example: Edison C placed 2nd at NAIC and 7th at worlds with Gholdengo, an objectively lower tiered deck. Masters can do this as well but its typically done with very high skill ceiling decks like charizard and gardevoir.

Regidrago - Why or Why not?

Regidrago is the best deck in the format. It has virtually zero awful matchups. Sure Raging Bolt is statistically unfavored, stall is very volatile depending on your opening starter, prize cards and what they can mill with fortune sisters and eri, but Regidrago truly has a chance against anything. The reason to NOT play regidrago is if you’re unconfident in the mirror match. I’d expect to play against 2 drago over 9 rounds - if you aren’t able to consistently beat the mirror in practice then this might mean you want to move to a deck like Raging Bolt which will give you an inherent advantage vs Drago, the best deck. 

Raging Bolt - Why or Why not?

Good matchup against the best deck? Check. Lets look at the next few decks… Zard, Lugia, Ancient Box… these are all tough for Bolt. The zard matchup becomes better if you play Spiritomb and Judge as well as Spiritomb helping against Lugia. The Ancient Box matchup becomes better if you play Charms and Lost Vacuum (to send a capsule to the lost zone or remove pokestop in combination with iono or judge). The good thing is that Bolt is reliably able to fire attacks off and if the opponent falters during the opening turns you have a shot at running away with the game against almost anything. If you want to have a lot of choices and impactful decision making, bolt might not be the best for you. But if you want your deck’s strength to carry you a bit and take a dice roll into some matchups, this is your deck. 

Charizard - Why or Why not?

I am personally very tempted to play zard to this event. Although the drago matchup is bad, Im confident I could win if my opponent doesn’t play perfectly or has some bad luck. The rest of the meta looks like a farm for zard: Bolt, Moon, Miraidon, and Ancient Box are all good matchups with Lugia being somewhere in the middle thanks to dusclops and dusknoir as well as a frequent temple of sinnoh tech. The cons for zard is that it takes long, technical turns, requires a solid understanding to perform even decent with it, and it has a horrible matchup against the best deck in the format.

Ancient Box - Why or Why not?

Lets keep this one simple. Ancient Box has an incredible matchup spread but it lacks on-board draw support (assuming your opponent kills greninja and you dont run fez) which makes it unreliable throughout portions of the game. Also it takes a while to know if you can win the game or not since you dont start swinging for big damage until late, so this can cause ties.

Other things

I think retreat lock is very strong for this event. Mawile, Water Ogerpon, Snorlax, Calamitous Wasteland, etc. It won’t be popular, but it could be strong. I considered mawile in Gardevoir so you can try to retreat lock drago as your win con since that matchup is pretty bad otherwise. 

Lugia is very strong for this event but likely wont be popular enough that you NEED to worry about it. I think on average, players will play against roughly 1 Lugia with some hitting 0 and some hitting 2 within 9 rounds. I’ll personally be keeping temple of sinnoh in my drago list this weekend. But im also considering Jamming tower as a second stadium because its good against Cape in zard, Capsule in ancient box, and Charm in bolt. Speaking of stadiums, Lost City could be annoying for zard lists with 2 or 3 mander and for Ancient Box (and against gardy but im not weighing that matchup with much importance).

Typically I wouldn’t want to play a 1 card tech like Sinnoh solely for a 10% meta share matchup, but temple of sinnoh in Regidrago gives you an absurd boost in win percentage against Lugia. I evaluate that it turns it from an unfavored to a favored matchup and that is too big of a swing to pass up on. I also think Lugia will be around at the top tables due to its matchup spread and since I want to win the event every win counts.

Conclusion

Make sure you have a functional deck that you’ve prepared matchup concepts for and replicated those concepts in practice. If you’ve successfully used your prepared ideas in the desired matchups in practice, all you need to do is replicate that in the event. Don’t change your deck because of a low percentage deck like snorlax or thorns. Don’t change your deck because you heard about a high percentage of a bad matchup: even if a deck is 12% percent you will on average play against 1 of it in 9 rounds.

Thanks for reading and good luck!