Three Years of Gym Leader Challenge

Today, July 14, 2024, marks the third anniversary of the Gym Leader Challenge format. It started with a simple discord message:

Since then, it has flourished as a fun and engrossing alternative way to play Pokémon cards. The format has spread to all corners of the Pokémon world, from Japan to Argentina and everywhere in between. The last year in itself has been exciting for the format—GLC started getting acknowledged by The Pokémon Company, International, saw new and changed card mechanics, and was played in regular, organized GLC leagues in game stores around the world. Let’s recap all of these and much more in this anniversary post!

The Best New Cards for All Decks

The Pokémon TCG set release cycle gives us new sets with 150+ cards every few months. With such a large card pool –that continues growing– cards that become staples for decks come few and far in between. Furthermore, cards that offer powerful but type-specific effects cannot be included in decks of other GLC types. Even so, every year we see a few cards offering powerful and flexible effects to trainers and making their way into a majority of decks. In this past year, we saw the release of Buddy-Buddy Poffin, a new Pokémon search card for Basic Pokémon with 70 HP or less. Most evolving Basic Pokémon have seen at least one printing with 70 HP or less since Black & White, making Poffin an amazing setup tool for every deck that wants to have many evolution Pokémon in play. Luxurious Cape was released in the Paradox Rift set in November last year, a tool that gives Pokémon +100 HP with the tradeoff of giving up an extra prize. While the tradeoff seemed steep, players soon realized that the +100 HP was worth it, allowing Pokémon to stay on the field for one or two more turns, attacking and taking more prizes, reducing the pressure to stream attackers, or even healing up and getting to attack for many more turns. Paradox Rift also introduced us to the new Technical Machine tool cards with the capability to give any Pokémon new attack options. While all of these TMs found homes in decks, some of them were more impactful. TMs Turbo Energize, Evolution, and Devolution offer setup and disruption utility to decks by accelerating energies or Pokémon from the deck and typically see more play than the damaging attacks offered by Blindside and Crisis Punch.

Changes to Game Mechanics

New cards aside, an important change to official game rules affected the usability of some cards. In essence, the new ruling says: the game now recognizes the format being played. This had both pros and cons. For a long time players had been able to use Evosoda for no effect even when all of their Pokémon were fully evolved because of the existence of Pokémon BREAK. The existence of these Pokémon –although not allowed in GLC– and the fact the game did not previously recognize the format restrictions, allowed Evosoda to be freely thinned from the hand in the late game. With the change to this ruling, now the game knows that Pokémon BREAK can not be played in the format and will prevent this usage. On the other hand, it means that players can no longer use their opponent’s stadium cards like Brooklet Hill and Turffield Stadium if they are playing a deck with a different type because the game now knows that you can only have one type of Pokémon in your deck. For a more detailed discussion and a list of exceptions, please take a look at this article on the Cardboard Warriors website. While this ruling will not affect many games, players have to keep in mind that certain game actions they could have done before are no longer legal.

GLC’s Journey with TPCi Continues

GLC received a boost when the Pokémon Company International included GLC in its official Alternative Play Handbook.

This was an important moment because it spread word about GLC, beyond the live-streaming and Regionals-going audience, to local players and households and professors looking for interesting new ways for their audiences to play the Pokémon Trading Card Game. Concurrently, multiple side events with hundreds of participants keep happening at every Regional and International Championships. The 2024 North American International Championships in New Orleans held the GLC Switch Series, a two day GLC tournament –a first of its kind for side events– with Swiss rounds and a top cut and TPCi-provided prizing. The event was won by Tricky Gym discord user @butterscotchdeino with their Raichu/Electivire Lightning deck.

Gym Leader Challenge Leagues

Regionals and International Championships are not the only places to play GLC competitively either. As the format grows in popularity, game stores around the world have started organizing regular play, which has mixed with a desire for competition to birth the idea of GLC leagues. A GLC league is a year-long competition where every player aims to win with every type of deck. Winning with a new type earns the player a badge, and the player with the most badges at the end of the year is crowned the winner. This type of league encourages players to master different types each week, which prevents the meta from stagnating and keeps players invested. It gives game stores and players a lot of options for art and customization in terms of incentives, badges, trainer cards, and prizes as well. Here’s an example of how the league at Full Grip Games in Akron, OH looked at the end of their year:

This style of league play is also reminiscent of the Pokémon video games, in which players had to collect gym badges of each type to win the game and become champion. Interested players can watch and learn about how to get started with your own local GLC league in the official introduction to GLC leagues:

Online and Webcam Play

When the format started three years ago, the Pokémon community still had the Pokémon Trading Card Game Online as the client for digital play. This has since been replaced by the new Pokémon Trading Card Game Live client, which was released without the entire GLC-legal card pool. This set back the popularity of the format, making it less accessible to players, forcing the community to look for other ways to play. Over the years, webcam play and third-party tabletop sims have become popular ways to play the format online with players across the globe. Online tournaments are also organized, often as part of regular series run by community members, and we thank all the organizers, participants, and streamers for being active and continuing to play, enjoy, and spread word of this unique format.

Hall of Fame Updates

Ever since Gym Leader Challenge began, it has attracted players because of the different pace of play from the Standard and Expanded formats, combined with more balance between different types and the freedom to play unique cards. The GLC community and Tricky Gym have always aimed to maintain these qualities to keep regular players hooked and attract newer players. And sometimes cards deemed too powerful or too enabling have to be banned. Over the past year, colorless decks using Archeops (Silver Tempest) to stream powerful attackers like Snorlax (Lost Origin), Lugia (Celebrations), and Aerodactyl (Team Up) became too dominant, partially because of the ease of setup, partially because of the plethora of good utility special energies, and partially because of the attackers’ damage outputs and HP. A possible solution would have been to ban these cards themselves, but the final decision was made instead to ban Pokémon Research Lab (Unified Minds), a stadium card that enabled a fast and consistent setup of the Archeops engine. It also made sense thematically, because instead of banning Pokémon, the ban was directed towards a card that circumvented the idea of evolving Pokémon. The GLC ban list (or “Hall of Fame”) for overpowered cards gained a seventh member.

Looking Forward

The international community is gearing up for the release of the Shrouded Fable mini-set in August, with highlights such as Janine’s Secret Technique paired with Binding Mochi (also releasing in Shrouded Fable) exciting Darkness-type players, and a Dusclops/Dusknoir line for Psychic spread decks. Beyond that lies the next full set, scheduled for September, Stellar Crown. That set brings with it the first stellar Pokémon, and although there are still no non-Rule-Box Tera Pokémon cards in existence, GLC players continue to hope and dream of type changing mechanics. Although we don’t know the contents of Stellar Crown entirely, a few cards already stand out - especially the new Joltik, which can accelerate two grass and two lightning energies from the deck in one attack, for a cost of only one colorless energy. Regular players have already highlighted the problems this card can create in combination with Amazing Rare Raikou (Vivid Voltage).

As a new year of Pokémon and GLC rolls over with this anniversary and the World Championships in August in Hawaii, we hope that GLC continues growing in popularity, drawing in serious and casual players alike. We leave you with the GLC Anniversary Album (full album here), a collection of beautiful paper decklists built and played by the community! Here are some sneak peeks: