Eleven-year-old Pokemon Trading Card Game (TCG) player Yen Shao-tong became Taiwan’s first-ever TCG champion at the annual Pokemon World Championships on Sunday.
Yen defeated opponent Gabriel Borges Torres from Brazil by using a combination of legendary Pokemons Kyogre and Raiko to take down Torres’ trump card, the deity Pokemon Arceus.
The players were accompanied by their translators on the stage at the Pacifico Yokohama exhibition center in Yokohama, Japan. The translators not only assisted the competitors in conversing, but helped them double check the effects and abilities of their opponent’s cards, which were published in their respective languages.
Photo: Screengrab from the Official Pokmon YouTube channel
Yen’s Lost Zone deck was considered a daring bid against Torres’ deck, which centered around Arceus, Duraludon and Umbreon, with the deck chosen by the Taiwanese champ widely recognized as a high-risk gamble. Torres’ deck has long proven to be stable but effective in professional and amateur tournaments around the world.
However, with his expert tactic of banishing a number of cards to the Lost Zone, combined with careful plays using Colress’ Experiment and Comfey alongside cards such as Dragonite V, Raiko V and Sableye, Yen stacked up enough energy cards to unleash his Kyogre’s Aqua Storm upon Torres to take the game, crowning him the champ of the Pokemon TCG Juniors division — the championships’ oldest event.
Taiwan’s last win at the Pokemon World Championships was in 2019 when Wu Pi took home the Video Game Championship title at the age of 10 after pulling out all the stops against his opponent while battling in Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon on the Nintendo 3DS system.
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