Puebla, Day 1: Ford, Rogerson and Connor in front, Latin America holds its own

The headlines

• A historic day: it is the first official broadcast in Spanish of a Latin American Regional. It is also the biggest Regional in the region's history: 2,210 Masters players from 19 countries, 2,075 of them Mexican.
• In front after nine rounds: Caleb Rogerson (United States), Jackson Ford (Canada) and Calvin Connor (United States), all at 8-0-1. Right behind, at 8-1, are Piper Lepine, Fernando Cifuentes, Brent Tonisson and Peru's Fabrizio Inga Silva.
• 375 into the second phase: with at least 16 points, all three of the region's guardians go through: Cifuentes, Miguel Ángel Marín Herrera and Giovanni. Diego Cassiraga, runner-up at the last Worlds, drops at 3-2-2.
• The Mexican to watch: Carlos Antonio Mondragón Tovar, with Mega Excadrill ex, finishes unbeaten at 7-0-2. In round 3 he had held Cassiraga to a tie.
• The meta: Dragapult makes up 27-30% of the room and is everywhere at the top tables. But in the featured matches it wins twice out of four, with two ties.

The event

Registration closed “in two or three seconds”, a huge room and a hot crowd that even does the wave at the end of the day. In the morning Miguel López and Pablo Mesa are on commentary. From round 5, Domi and Marco Cifuentes take over, then López and Mesa come back.

The format is the one seen at Louisville and Nice. The first phase is 8 Swiss rounds, best-of-three, and you move on to the second phase with 16 points, for example 5 wins and a tie. Tonight the first round of the second phase was played; on Sunday the rest is played, followed by the asymmetric Top Cut: the top 8 plus anyone with the same points as 8th place, up to 8 extra players. According to the booth, with three wins tomorrow the 7-0-2 players would reach 32 points, “probably safe” for the Top Cut.

The winner gets 350 Championship Points, $10,000 and an invitation to the Singapore World Championships in August 2027. The runner-up gets 325 points and $7,000, the Top 4 300 points and $5,000, the Top 8 $3,000, and prizes go down to the Top 32. There is no longer a fixed points threshold for Worlds: only your position in the standings counts.

Standings at the end of the day

• 8-0-1: Caleb Rogerson and Jackson Ford, who tie each other in round 9, and Calvin Connor.
• 8-1: Piper Lepine, Fernando Cifuentes, Brent Tonisson and Fabrizio Inga Silva.
• 7-0-2: Carlos Antonio Mondragón Tovar, Ángel Daniel (Mexico) and Andrew Zheng (United States).
• 6-1-2: Jonathan Bellucci Lanciano (Argentina).
• 6-2-1: Andrew Hedrick, Miguel Ángel Marín Herrera, Shinji Alcalá Okayasu, Jeancarlo de Jesús Sánchez Bolón and Matías Matricardi (Argentina).
• The other names in the second phase: Akira Kurasaki (6-3), Diego Lezama (5-2-2) and Rodrigo Alejo Gutiérrez (5-1-3). Giovanni finished the first phase at 6-2.

The undefeated count shrinks round after round: 365 after round 2, 145 after round 3, 57 after round 4, 22 after round 5, 7 after round 6, 3 after round 7 and 2 after round 8, namely Ford and Rogerson, who then tie each other. Mexicans dominate the numbers in the early rounds: they were 318 of the 365 at 2-0 and 118 of the 145 at 3-0. Ties ran at about one in every five tables nearly all day: from 18.9% in round 1 to 15.9% in round 6, then back up to 20.9% in round 9.

Who goes through and who is out

• The region's guardians: Fernando Cifuentes, 2024 world champion, plays Zoroark and finishes 8-1. Miguel Ángel Marín Herrera, always loyal to Dragapult, wins the decisive game in the last round and goes through. Giovanni, who won the Lima Special Event and the Toronto Regional, loses round 1, then turns down the intentional draw in the last round, wins and goes through at 6-2. Diego Cassiraga, 2017 world champion and playing in his seventeenth Worlds, drops at 3-2-2.
• The outside rivals: they all go through. Piper Lepine, with a Worlds Top 8 and a commentator on the North American broadcasts, loses only the game on stream and finishes 8-1. Andrew Hedrick goes through by the skin of his teeth. Akira Kurasaki, the Querétaro champion, is here “to win”, because under the Japanese points system only a win earns him an invitation. He finishes 6-3.
• The rising stars: Shinji Alcalá Okayasu, Top 8 at Querétaro, goes through by winning the last round. Emiliano Zapata (Worlds Top 64) and Laura Favela finish the first phase under 16 points, at 4-1-3 and 4-2-2 respectively.
• The Argentines: besides Cassiraga, who is out, Bellucci and Matricardi, from his group, go through.

The meta

• Dragapult, “to nobody's surprise”: it makes up 27-30% of the room, in three versions: with Crushing Hammer, with Blaziken and with Dusknoir. Its secret is Drakloak, a draw engine that stays on the field. But the deck does not play itself: “a badly placed counter costs you for three or four turns”. By the end of the day the top tables are full of Dragapult.
• “It's not all Dragapult”: the room has Zoroark, Hydrapple in several versions, Alakazam, Slowking, Mega Excadrill ex and Festival Lead. Hide 'n' Sneak comes off a Top 4 and a final in the last two Regionals. Mega Sharpedo ex and a few Mega Starmie are around. Festival Lead holds up against almost everything but struggles against the dragon, and a Seaking variant of it made Top 4 last week. Raging Bolt was barely seen: it struggles against Zoroark.
• The morning predictions: Festival Lead and Mega Sharpedo ex, Raging Bolt in Basic Box against the high-HP Megas, Hydrapple with Meganium, Alakazam/Dusknoir, Hide 'n' Sneak and Mega Chandelure ex. At the end of the day the booth admits they held up about half the time. In Mexico, they say, “people like playing different decks”.

The decks seen on broadcast

• Dragapult ex: with Phantom Dive it deals 200 damage to the Active Pokémon and places six damage counters on the Bench. Played by Jackson Ford (the Blaziken and Rare Candy version), Jonathan Bellucci (without Crushing Hammer, with Hero's Cape, which brings Dragapult to 420 HP, Lillie's Clefairy ex and Yveltal), Shinji Alcalá Okayasu and Andrew Zheng (with Chi-Yu and Crushing Hammer).
• N's Zoroark ex: it copies the attacks of the N's Pokémon on the Bench, like Zekrom's 250, and draws with Trade. Bench space for Pecharunt ex and the N's Castle Stadium matter. Played by Matías Matricardi and Rodrigo Alejo Gutiérrez, and according to the booth by Cifuentes and Giovanni too.
• Hydrapple ex: Meganium doubles the Grass Energy and Forest of Vitality evolves it right away, with Teal Mask Ogerpon ex as the engine. Played by Diego Cassiraga and Ángel Daniel, who brings two Celebi.
• Mega Excadrill ex: 340 HP, Grass resistance, Metang to load up Metal Energy and Genesect ex for evolutions. Team Rocket's Petrel is there to find Precious Trolley. Played by Carlos Antonio Mondragón Tovar.
• Mega Lucario ex: Solrock and Lunatone to get started, Hariyama to call Pokémon up from the Bench, Premium Power Pro for damage. Played by Frank Rojas.
• Slowking: it copies the attacks in the deck, from the Kyurem that sweeps the Bench to the 300-damage Metagross. It has Mega Kangaskhan ex for drawing, and Mew ex. Played by Jeancarlo de Jesús.
• Alakazam: damage grows with the cards in hand. It has Flutter Mane to shut off abilities and Lillie's Pearl so that Clefairy gives up only one Prize. Played by Piper Lepine, without Shaymin.
• Hide 'n' Sneak with Dhelmise: its ability protects the Bench from Phantom Dive, and it was born as an anti-Dragapult deck. It has Legacy Energy as its ACE SPEC. Played by Diego Lezama.
• Ceruledge ex: it deals 20 damage for each basic Energy in the discard pile and runs 20 Energy and Prism Tower. Played by Kobe Héctor Rodríguez Núñez.

The seven featured matches

• Round 3, Cassiraga vs. Mondragón Tovar, 1-1: it is the first broadcast match of a Latin American Regional. Mondragón wins Game 1 with a perfect start. Cassiraga wins Game 2 despite the two Bayleef in the Prizes. In Game 3 Mega Excadrill is still standing with 10 HP and time is called: for Diego it is a tie “that feels like a win”.
• Round 4, Ford vs. Rojas, 2-1: Rojas wins Game 1 at full speed and loses Game 2, with the two Lunatone in the Prizes. In Game 3 he attacks a Drakloak instead of Knocking Out Torchic, and Ford punishes him with Blaziken and a four-Prize turn. “You lost in the middle of the game, not on the last turn.”
• Round 5, Jeancarlo de Jesús vs. Lepine, 2-1: Flutter Mane shuts off Mega Kangaskhan and Game 1 goes to Lepine. Without Shaymin, though, the Kyurem copied by Slowking wipes her Bench twice. Jeancarlo wins with a Night Stretcher drawn at the last moment: “I didn't count the cards right”.
• Round 6, Matricardi vs. Rodrigo Alejo Gutiérrez, 1-1: a Zoroark mirror as slow as a chess game. Rodrigo wins Game 1 by exploiting his opponent's full Bench, with no room for Pecharunt. Matricardi levels it by finding the right card with the last draw of the extra turns. In both games, whoever plays Budew on turn one loses.
• Round 7, Bellucci vs. Lezama, 1-1: Hero's Cape and a three-Prize turn give Game 1 to Bellucci. Lezama wins Game 2 by holding on to a Boss's Orders he was about to discard. Game 3 ends on time.
• Round 8, Shinji vs. Héctor Rodríguez Núñez, 2-0: it is a “win and in”. Shinji withstands Ceruledge's start, removes the Legacy Energy with Crushing Hammer and then locks out Items with Budew. Héctor ends it with a two-Prize penalty.
• Round 9, Zheng vs. Ángel Daniel, 1-1: Zheng wins Game 1, in which Ángel is missing a Night Stretcher to close it out. Ángel answers with a lightning-fast Hydrapple, and there is no time for Game 3.

The interviews

• Diego Cassiraga, from Worlds: he advises taking tournament trips “as mini vacations, with no pressure”.
• Shinji Alcalá Okayasu: “to defend Mexico”. After the decisive round: “we come to have fun, otherwise you learn”.
• Laura Favela: she wants to “inspire other women” to play Regionals. She trains in her league and on Pokémon TCG Live.
• Emiliano Zapata: he plays for his friends. To newcomers he advises having fun and playing the deck you like.
• Jeancarlo de Jesús: he has been playing seriously for two years.
• From the archive: Luciana P. (Peru), Víctor García (Worlds Top 8 in Yokohama), Raúl Merino and Víctor de Velasco. They all advise consistency, local leagues and not getting discouraged.

The Latin American calendar

In November, the Buenos Aires Special Event and the São Paulo International, two weeks in a row. In 2027, the Mérida Regional, then the London International in February, immediately followed by the Santiago and Rio de Janeiro Regionals. Then Monterrey, Lima and Porto Alegre, with 12 events in April alone, the NAIC in Chicago for the first time and the Singapore Worlds.

Quick hits

• It was the day of Prize bad luck: Cassiraga's double Bayleef and Rojas's double Lunatone, “one game in a hundred”.
• “Round zero is your 60 cards,” says Pablo Mesa, and Bellucci's Hero's Cape and Lepine's Shaymin-less list bear him out.
• Giovanni turns down the intentional draw in the last round, plays and wins: “even when you can relax, you can give it everything”.
• VGC (Pokémon Champions) and GO are also being played at Puebla.

Sources. results and standings for rounds 1-9 from Limitless Labs (labs.limitlesstcg.com/0078); meta, decks, interviews and featured matches: summary and data processing from the Day 1 official live broadcast. Decks as shown or mentioned on the broadcast.