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How to Do Well at the World Championships

What’s up, everyone! SmartTCG here, and I am stoked to be hopping into an article dedicated to your success heading into the 2023 Pokemon TCG World Championships. I have qualified for several World Championships, and I know what it takes to do well. I finished with over 1100 Points this season, and have automatically qualified for Day 2 of the World Championships.

Now… what exactly does that mean for you? Well, it means that I have time to make sure I get you as ready as possible to join me in the big dance on Saturday! In today’s article, I will go into my Top 3 decks heading into Day 1 of the World Championships. These are all lists I am currently testing with, and all are on my radar for this event. Let’s dive into everything you need to know about Worlds! 

The Worlds Metagame

Alright, let’s take a look at the Worlds metagame and structure to start with. Heading into the World Championships, you will need to finish with an X-2 record to qualify for the second day. Now, what does this mean? It means that ties are effectively losses in this event, meaning that you do not want to play a deck with a high tie rate. This is a disaster waiting to happen, and decks like Lost Zone Tool Box and Gardevoir are much weaker options on Day 1, due to ties being a factor. 

What decks are good, then? 

Heading into Day 1, it will be imperative to play decks that have the ability to finish games. Decks like Arceus VSTAR, Lugia VSTAR, Mew VMAX, Giratina variants, Urshifu Inteleon, and more are all decks that instantly are put on the radar for decks to consider on Day 1. All of them can put the pedal to the metal quickly and can rush to finish games, unlike some other current meta decks. However, out of the many decks that can finish games quickly, there are only three that I would play.

After upgrading to Stage 2 you will see the rest of Gabriel Smart’s article, a PTCGL friendly deck export at the bottom of the article, and an audio recording of this article by Andy Hyun:
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