Hi everyone. This is a blog style post that combines Pokemon TCG shopping hauls and local tournament report on Pokemon Day 2025 on February 28, 2025.
For Pokemon Day I had the day off. I decide to do a day trip to Toronto to do some shopping, buy some cards and play a local tournament. This first place I visit is called Go For Game TCG in Toronto's Chinatown area. I used to go here often but I get somewhat bad vibes from the one guy there.
When I visit the store that bad vibes guy was there. He ended up being okay today in the end.
I just buy two playable cards for a dollar. They were Iron Bundle and Picnic Basket. The store had a free section of Yugioh and mostly Japanese Pokemon cards from the latest Battle Partners set. I collect some Japanese Pokemon cards like Iono's Voltorb, Hop's Cramorant, Lillie's Pearl, N's Zorua and other playable stuff. These are for playtesting with my brother. (Pictures are from my Redmi Note 13 Pro phone. Other images are from mostly Bulbapedia.)
Around a five minute walk away I visit Dolly's Toys and Games in the Chinatown Centre Mall in Toronto. I have been to their Scarborough (East Toronto) location for a tournament once and am aware of their Chinatown location. Before this visit I never actually visited their store. As I had time before the Pokemon Day 3PM tournament I decided to check them out.
They carry a lot of sports cards in the middle of their small store in the bulk section. There is a Pokemon bulk section on the right of the store for you to search and buy what you find there. From their bulk section I purchase 1 Iono's Kilowattrel (JPN) for a dollar (CAD).
The store do have Pokemon cards binder on the left. I found some Japanese Pokemon cards from Battle Partners good for playtesting. Cards like Fezandipiti ex, Teal Mask Ogerpon ex were 2 dollars each. They had a pricing scheme where if you bought 6 it was 10 dollars. It was like buy 5 get 1 free. Here is what I got.
At Dolly's Toys and Games I spent around 11 CAD and they gave me the promo cards for Pokemon Day. Very nice.
I then head to my featured destination. It was A & C Games again. The location is just outside the Chinatown area and more near the University of Toronto downtown campus.
It was a free entry Pokemon TCG tournament. The rounds were best of 1 rounds. Each win got you one Prize Pack Series Six pack. I was entering this tournament to win the free swag. Winning would be a bonus.
My first round opponent was someone I faced before. He plays Ceruldege ex. What was different this time was that he plays Iron Hands ex instead of Palkia VSTAR.
I don't remember the exact details. I was in the lead and then lost in the end. The opponent pulled off a comeback win and I think I made a mistake near the end. There was also a moment where my Ceruledge ex has 260 damage on it and I need to get a Relicanth from my deck. This was for getting the combo of Relicanth's Memory Dive with Duraludon's Raging Hammer attack so Archaludon ex can hit for 340 damage to one hit knockout his Cerluedge ex for the win.
It was a close game but I lost. A little sad at this point. The opponent admitted to me that he was nervous on that one turn where I almost won.
Before starting round two there was a raffle draw for Pokemon Day. The first two raffle winners were my first round opponent and another round one winner. They got plushies. To my surprise the next winner was me. I lost my first round matchup lol. My raffle prize was this Chimchar plushie Keychain. This is worth around 20 CAD.
My round two opponent was someone I have not seen before. He had no playmat and also appeared to not know setup rules before starting the game. I think he won the coin flip and he decided to go first.
When we start the game I noticed that he opened with a Munchlax. Munchlax had no regulation mark on the bottom left corner of the card that said F, G or H. I was not sure to call a judge right away or be more discreet and call the judge after his first turn. When I saw his active Muchlax I was fairly confident I could win fast. I called for a judge to one of the store employees. I mentioned that the judge should watch the game (instead of saying my opponent had illegal cards for the standard format).
After a few minutes the judge came in and took a look. This was during my second turn. He explained that my opponent's deck was not valid for the standard format. My opponent would be disqualified and I would get the win. We still had the option to play it out for practice but my opponent did not want to.
The judge did offer my opponent this demo deck product for free. This demo deck was something I did not existed. It had some playable cards and a few basic Pokemon ex attackers. This was for my opponent fixing his deck. I tried to help but he initially refused. Then he wanted my help. He did not understand the concept of having the regulation cards F, G, H for standard play Pokemon TCG tournaments. I then called the judge again.
Before round three I think the opponent left. The guy did put a bunch of stuff together to put in a 60 card deck. Deck building basic knowledge was not there. I also think that there are not a lot of resources out there on basic knowledge on tournament structure. With deck building guides Justin Basil site is good for starting out until you get really good competitively.
My round three opponent was against Gardevoir ex. I go first in the first turn. I do some basic setup and place a Jamming Tower stadium card. Jamming Tower is for disrupting a first turn Arven plus Technical Machine: Evolution play that could happen. This would slow down the Gardevoir ex setup with Ralts into Kirlia.
The Jamming Tower stadium turned out to be super effective for turns 2 and 3. I managed to get a turn 2 Archaludon ex setup and start attacking his Pokemon one by one. This lasted for a few turns.
My opponent did try to slow me down with a Counter Catcher stall and Memory skip attacks from Ralts. To counter this I have Professor Turo's Scenario ready and a Relicanth to use a different attack.
When my opponent got a Gardevoir ex in play I was around 2 Prize cards left from winning versus his 5 or 6 remaining. My lead was pretty good. I just had to sustain my lead and then win. I remember my second last turn being using Iron Bundle's ability to push away his active Gardevoir ex to target one of his single Prize Pokemon on the Bench.
The opponent did try for a comeback but in the final turn I evolve a Duraludon into another Archaludon ex. I think I used Iron Bundle again with the help of Night Stretcher. I win by attacking another single prize Pokemon for my sixth Prize card.
I end the tournament with a 2 wins and 1 loss record. With the Gardevoir ex matchup I am happy with how I played and my luck was good too. Playing against Gardevoir ex is annoying as the games are often long and they can tend to pull off comeback wins from losing in the early game. Jamming Tower is very important to prevent Drifloon with a Bravery Charm with 100 damage on it to do 300 damage.
As I was 2 wins and 1 loss I earn two Prize Pack Series 6 booster packs. Because it was Pokemon Day there were raffle prizes to the others who have not won. One girl got a Pokemon playmat, my third round opponent won a Iron Valiant ex box with 4 booster packs and a giant Iron Valiant card. That is worth around 25 CAD (maybe a little more).
Here were the pulls from my Prize Pack Series 6 packs that I was rewarded with. We also got free stickers lol.
The good pulls were:
It was a good day overall spent in the city.
Thank you for reading.
