Memory Capsule - A Pokemon TCG Podcast

We have a special episode for our listeners! Kyle Sabelhaus, Ciaran Farah, and Mo Ideis joined Rafal to help diagnose the issues with the Pokemon TCG's tournament structure, how it could be improved, and why we all want the best for the game we love.

Today’s guest is JW Kriewall. While many of you may know him as a member of the Pokemon Trading Card Game's premier podcasting trio, JW is also a three-time Regional Champion, having taken the gold at Fort Wayne 2013, Richmond 2019, and most recently Toronto 2023, where he achieved an automatic worlds invite with Miraidon. JW is also a Youtuber, Twitch streamer, and a prominent figure in the Pokemon TCG community on Twitter.

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Today’s guest is Cyrus Davis. Cyrus is an incredibly talented player, who is perhaps best known for winning NAIC 2023 with Urshifu Inteleon. They also have several other incredible achievements, including a Regional top 16 and top 4, as well as a 9th place finish at the 2023 World Championships. Cyrus is also known for playing several unorthodox deck archetypes to great success, and has also written several high quality guides and articles for the Shuffle Squad, Metafy, and Schemanske’s Corner.

Today’s guest is Rahul Reddy. Rahul is a player and content creator who has been playing the Pokemon TCG for over 10 years. Rahul has several incredible achievements as a player, including multiple International top cuts, almost a dozen Regional top cuts, and many strong finishes at Worlds, including a top 16 finish in 2018 and top 32 in 2019. Rahul has had success with multiple deck archetypes, perhaps most famously with Bee Revenge Vespiquen in both the Standard and Expanded formats, as well as innovating the Regis deck during Lugia Vstar’s dominance.

Today’s guest is Kyle Sabelhaus. Kyle is a veteran player who has seen success in the Pokemon TCG for two decades. Today he is best known as one of the incredibly talented members of the Pokemon TCG commentary team. Over the years Kyle has had great success across all levels of the Pokemon TCG, winning regionals, placing high at Nationals, and finishing as high as Top 16 at the World Championship. In between stints on the commentary desk, Kyle has continued to attend events to this day, making it to day 2 at several regionals in the past few years.

Today’s guest is Toine Lay. While Toine may be best known in the Pokemon TCG community as the first Twitter that players go to check for translations of cards coming out in Japan, they are also a very talented player with incredible achievements. Toine splits their time between France and Japan, and placed top 4 in two Champions Leagues, as well as top 16 in the 2021 Japan National Championship. They have also achieved top 32 and 64 finishes at major events in Europe over the past year.

Toine's Twitter - ⁠https://twitter.com/ToineLay

Today’s guest is Aneil Saini. Aneil has played the game on and off for over a decade, returning in the past few years without missing a step. Placing top 16 at two regionals with Mew Vmax as well as top 16 at LAIC 2023 with an innovating Turbo Miraidon list, Aneil has shown that he is among the best players from the competitive Toronto area. Aneil is also one of the hosts of the Shift Gear Podcast.

Today’s guest is Kevin Clemente, also known in the Pokemon community as Mellow_Magikarp. Kevin is an incredibly talented player, achieving a Worlds invite in 2019 - just his first season playing competitively - as well as 2022. He has had multiple strong finishes at major events, including 2 Regional top 16s. He is also the host of the Lake of Rage podcast, where he’s interviewed Regional, International, and World champions as well as content creators and other important individuals in the Pokemon TCG community. His Youtube channel is a valuable online resource, providing players with decklists, meta predictions, and lessons on how to improve as a player. In this episode we discuss his rapid growth as a player, how he feels about achieving a Worlds invite this season, the development of his online content, and more.