Team CGC Trading Cards Made Day Two of the Pokémon Charlotte Regional Championships!

Team CGC Trading Cards made it to day two of a major tournament yet again! Continuing their streak of day two placings this competitive season, the team battled 1170 Master-level competitors at the Pokémon Charlotte Regional Championships on March 24-26.

Representing Team CGC Trading Cards, Daniel Altavilla placed 23rd (10/3/2), Azul Garcia Griego placed 41st (9/3/3), Caleb Gedemer placed 236th (4/1/4) and Kidd Starck placed 240th (4/1/4). Caleb and Kidd barely missed day two but succeeded in earning points toward the World Championships.

After trying a new strategy with Lugia VSTAR in the Vancouver Regionals, the team ultimately decided to return to their Lost Zone Box at Charlotte. In each competition, choosing which deck to run is never an easy decision. From Kidd’s perspective “We give every deck a chance and even try and come up with new decks. We came very close to playing a deck built around Flaffy that was just a little too inconsistent to take to regionals. In the end, we know how to build Lost Zone decks to give us small advantages in this played out metagame.”

“The way we rank decks tends to reflect those advantages and Lost Zone Box came out as #1. The list we decided on looked very close to our Lost Zone Box list Azul used to win OCIC. The main changes were cutting Snorlax and Choice Belt for Zamazenta (from Crown Zenith) and Metal Energies. We felt Zamazenta was more consistent at doing one of the most important things in the format for our deck: one hit KO-ing Stoutland V from the Lugia Vstar deck.”

Kidd also noted that the team faced a challenge at Charlotte: Azul and Daniel played against each other in Round 11. Azul was victorious in this match-up, but then struggled against a Mew VMAX deck later. Despite these difficulties, the team has excellent camaraderie and Kidd notes, “We are always trying to make each other better.”

Some of CGC Trading Cards’ own graders also competed in the tournament! Stephen Richardson placed 85th (7/3/5) and Colin Yates, who placed second at the CGC Trading Cards Invitational, placed 138th (6/3/0).

Team CGC Trading Cards was assembled by Danny Oesterreich in 2022, and is comprised of seasoned players Daniel Altavilla, Azul Garcia Griego, Caleb Gedemer and Kidd Starck. The team will compete next at the Fort Wayne Regional Championships, at the Grand Wayne Convention Center, in Fort Wayne, Indiana on March 31 - April 2.

Please join us in wishing the team the best of luck throughout the season and keep an eye out for new updates on the team’s performance by following CGC Trading Cards social channels, @CGCcards. You can also watch the events live on the Pokémon YouTube and Twitch channels to see players do battle.

To learn more about Team CGC Trading Cards, click here.