Hi there. Another local tournament Pokemon TCG post here.
I try out a Gym Leader Challenge casual tournament event in Toronto. It is at A & C Games near Toronto's Chinatown and University of Toronto.
The Gym Leader Challenge format is an alternate Pokemon TCG format with different rules compared to the Standard format and the Expanded format. Modern competitive tournaments run on a Standard format where the latest cards are legal and every year one block of cards gets removed from standard play. This rotating Standard format does have players buy new cards but it keeps the game fresh.
With the Gym Leader Challenge (GLC) format, you have an expanded card pool and these rules.
Only one of each card with the same name per deck (except Basic Energy)
No Rule Box cards or ACE SPEC cards
Only one type (color) of Pokémon per deck
Cards printed from Black & White–on
No cards on the Ban List
There are no Pokemon ex, Pokemon V, Pokemon GX or Mega Pokemon ex, Radiant Pokemon, nor ACE SPECs in this format. This does reduce the power level in this format.
With an expanded card pool that goes back to 2011's Black and White, it takes time to get used to older cards. I started with Scarlet & Violet Paldea Evolved around 2023 and starting playing at Paradox Rift. There is a guide but it still takes time to know what is good and which cards are similar.
There are some really good cards in the GLC format but they are expensive (8 CAD or more) or just hard to find. Instead of putting these in my decks I find alternatives or skip them.
A month ago, I took some time to figure out what I liked and what cards in my bulk section were available. Grass and Dragon were good but I settled on a Fighting deck. Even within the Fighting archetype, there are different Fighting attackers you can go with.
Fighting Pokemon can be weak to either Grass or Psychic so I wanted a different mix of Fighting attackers. There is also the modern Fighting cards like Solrock, Lunatone, Okidogi, Fighting Gong and Tarragon.
Here is my deck split into 2 images.
It is hard to test Gym Leader Challenge decks on your own. Pokemon TCG Live, the free online game client, does have a Trainer Trials mode where they do GLC decks. The problem is that I could not test cards like Korrina, Professor's Letter, Scorched Earth, Strong Energy and Focus Sash.
For testing, I had to use alternatives like Cycling Road, Earthen Vessel, Avery and Stone Energy
My Attackers + Grant
Okidogi is the best attacker but there are some other good ones here.
This free casual GLC tournament is 3 best of one rounds. Those who get 1 loss or 0 losses get Prize Packs.
I have talked to store organizers and they mentioned that if attendance is good then they will likely host more Gym Leader Challenge events. This is to mixed things up. I also think that there are running out of Prize Packs, lol.
My first opponent played a water deck. I have played him once before in standard. He is a regular.
I take an early lead and find myself in a good position. In the mid game, my opponent gets a good board setup and mounts a comeback.
There were a few cards I was not familiar with. It was this Drizzile and Inteleon. Being able to search for Trainer cards upon evolution is pretty good.
Some good back and forth was going on until we reached extra turns. After 30 minutes of time, each player has 2 extra turns. We could not determine a winner from extra turns.
After extra turns, the prize cards were 2 each. The opponent offered a coin flip to determine the winner. I did not want this. Determining a winner randomly after playing for 30 minutes seems weird to me. I know that ties count as losses for prizing purposes but I rather take the tie.
The opponent should play much faster in terms of thinking time and card shuffling time. In round 2 and round 3 I find out that he went to extra turns also.
In round two, I face someone who I haven't played against in a few years. Back then I would face him very often.
The funny thing here was that he forgot his main Psychic deck. He had to borrow a Metal deck from someone for this event.
My start in this game was not the greatest. I actually had to retreat into Carbink and fetch some items to get some setup.
This game had some good back and forth. In the mid game I was behind but I slowly catchup. There was an error I noticed a few turns after the error. My opponent accidentally attacked with Counter Energy but he was ahead. The attack should not have happened as there was not enough energy for the one attack. It was too late to reverse the board state. My opponent stated that it was double prize penalty for him. I need 2 less prize cards to win. We end up at 2 Prize cards left.
My opponent does play fast but sometimes he rushes and ends up being sloppy.
My opponent's board state was pretty good with Bronzong, Revavroom, Metagross (Emergency Entry), Metang and Archaludon.
He plays Hex Maniac to shut off abilities for a turn. This shuts off my Okidogi and he Knocks Out the Okidogi with more damage than 130 HP.
There was a rare line of play to win here but I could not find it. I end up losing this one. Or so I thought. The opponent referenced the mistake from the Counter Energy attack and gave me the win. He said it was a game loss for that mistake. Nice of him.
For round 3, I face another regular. I faced him a few times before in Standard format. I may have beaten him once out of 3 games.
What did not help was that I mulliganed my starting 7 card hand three times. This gave my opponent an optional extra 3 cards before turn one.
I find out my opponent played a Lightning deck with an Active Mareep. Little did I know that it was a spread damage version.
This game was ended up really bad for me. My starting hand is not great, my setup is kind of slow. The opponent kind of had the nuts. Canari turn 2 for Flaaffy, Eelektrik and other attackers is too good.
The best I could was get a Hitmonchan knockout on a Electrivire. Then he had Silent Lab to shut off Okidogi plus I had a bad hand.
It was a very bad loss. I don't remember the last time where I got extremely unlucky and got steamrolled like this. Maybe that loss at a prerelease against a brand new player was pretty unlucky. Nothing much I could have done here even with a type advantage.
I end with 1 win, 1 tie and 1 loss. With this record, I had mixed emotions from each outcome.
As I did not get 2 wins and 1 loss at least, no prizing for me. There were 10 players in this GLC event.
For my first time in this format, I thought I did okay. I have a better idea of what cards and strategies are good. I understand better why certain staple cards are good in their own way.
My issue with this format is that it does feel more pay to win in terms of deckbuilding and certain cards. Some staple cards are really old cards where the price is at least 5 CAD or more. In addition, some cards are hard to find. These cards include Float Stone, VS Seeker, Hex Maniac, Silent Lab, Scoop Up Net (hard to find), Teammates, Guzma & Hala, Rosa.
There were two Psychic decks in the room. Fighting is not great versus Psychic but I can change some Fighting attackers to the ones with Grass weakness.
Remember the previous local tournament last week that was celebrating Pokemon Worlds? I bubbled and missed out on the Pikachu promo card. The first place guy got the same 3 wins 0 loss record but with better opponent's win record.
What is more messed up is that the first place guy does not get a promo card. There was some distribution error of sorts from The Pokemon Company. Local game stores should receive prizing on time from The Pokemon Company but our game store did not receive anything. A lot other card stores have the same issue where they did not receive pricing. Apparently the Worlds celebration tournament events are supposed to be longer than 3 best of one rounds.
After the tournament, I do some shopping from two card stores, eat dinner and buy some snacks.
Thank you for reading.
