Hi there. In this Pokemon TCG tournament blog post, I cover my Mega Evolutions Prerelease event.
This is a long post.
Pokemon Prerelease Events
Pokemon TCG has organized prerelease events across local card game stores around the world. Unfortunately, there are certain regions that don't have a developed Pokemon TCG scene. A Prerelease events allows players and collectors to get access to cards before the official release date of a set. Mega Evolutions set releases on Friday September 26, 2025 but prerelease events start as early as September 13, 2025.
There are a few stores out there that hold Midnight prerelease events at 12:00AM on September 13, 2025. This is to appeal to crazy fans who want the cards as early as possible. I went to 2 prerelease events on a later date. This is blog 01 of 02.
At a Prerelease event you get a Build & Battle Box. This Box contains a preconstructed deck, 4 booster packs and 1 promo card. Depending on the store, you get additional packs and prizing.
The promo card you get is random from the 4 choices. The 4 promo card choices are Meganium, Inteleon, Alakazam and Lunatone.
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Tournament Event & Prizing
The place I went to is A & C Games in downtown Toronto. It is near the University of Toronto campus.
The entry cost for this Prerelease is 40 CAD. This is a good price as a booster bundle of 6 packs is 60 CAD these days and the Build & Battle Box for retail is around 70 CAD. Getting a build and battle Box plus play in a tournament for a chance for more packs at 40 CAD is pretty good.
After 30 minutes of deckbuilding, there are 3 best of 1 rounds. For each win you get 1 extra pack. The extra packs are awarded at the end. This prizing is competitive but I think it is fair.
Some other places give out 3 packs regardless of your win-loss record in the pre-release tournament. Competitive prizing such as 1 pack per win gets people to try and discourages people from entering and then leaving without playing. Non-competitive prizing is good for everyone at the event but you are not playing for anything which makes the event more casual. It depends on the store.
Deckbuilding From Packs & Preconstructed Deck
I open my Build & Battle Box kit. My promo card was Meganium. I got the Grass deck which made me happy. Prior to this event I did research on the prerelease decks. Grass deck has stupid easy power and setup. It seemed overpowered in this event.
These photos taken after the event from my phone.
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There is a helpful video where the guy covers the core cards from prerelease decks. This video is long but I got the decklists. The screenshot pictures is in Spanish (I think).
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Every deck comes with 2 copies of Lillie's Determination, 2 Drayton, 1 Lana's Aid, 1 Lacey and I think 1 Buddy Buddy Poffin.
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Depending on the group of cards you have, the deck may or may not have Rare Candy, Ultra Ball, Switch, Boss's Orders.
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Prerelease decks now seem to have good playable cards which sort of levels the playing field for everyone. One major problem I foresaw was the lack of hand disruption to punish large hands like Iono, Judge or the not so used Harlequin.
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Round One
The store kind of changed its operations for Prereleases. During deckbuilding we were matched with our round 1 opponents. This did not happened before. As you are deckbuilding, your opponent knows what you have and you know what deck your opponent has.
My first round opponent was new. He was coming back to the Pokemon TCG. I was against the Inteleon deck.
I won quickly in 2 turns. This win did not feel very good to me. It was me going first, attach grass Energy to Dhelmise in the Active. His first turn had a Sobble with no Benched Pokemon. (I sue Pokemon Proxies images here)
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My second turn had me use a Stadium, attach 2nd grass Energy and then attack for the quick knockout win. This lasted 3 minutes out of the available 30 minutes.
For the rest of the time remaining, I offered more practice games for my opponent. In addition, I helped him out on basics, setup and such. That way he would be okay for his second round. Interestingly enough, his second round opponent was the guy to my left in round one. He lost too with a water deck.
Round Two
My round 2 opponent played the Solrock, Lunatone, Gargancl Fighting deck. My early setup was pretty lucky as I had Celebi to search what I wanted. The next turns consisted of me just attacking, getting knockouts until the win.
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This game lasted around 5 minutes. I played kind of fast too. To pass the time, I offered a second game as practice to pass the time and for learning.
Round 3
My round 3 opponent was also at 2 wins and 0 losses. It was a Meganium Grass mirror match. When it comes to mirror matches, I don't like them. In many mirror matches, whoever hits first usually wins, whoever has good setup first usually wins. There are times when hitting first is bad. There are too many factors and it can get complicated. One mistake can result in a long term loss.
I don't remember the full details. With careful gameplay and some long term thinking, I was able to get the win in the end. I do recall using Celebi a lot for good setup instead of attacking early in the game.
Post Tournament Stuff + Pizza Bonus
There were a maximum of 24 players. I ended with a 3 wins 0 losses record. Very good and it was better than I expected. But I had no expectations other than getting at least 1 win.
My placing was third. Two other people had 3 wins and 0 losses as well but their opponent's win records were better than mine (as the tiebreak).
There were also raffle draws. The prizes included:
- Sylveon Plush
- Pokemon TCG Playmat
- x2 Free CGC Card Grading
Pizza Bonus
This Pizza bonus was a nice surprise. The tournament organizer was talking to me before the event in how there was Pizza included too. There was some partnership with Pizza Pizza (local Pizza franchise in Ontario province). This was unexpected. After we got prizes and raffle prizes, we had some Pizza. It was party slices. I had no pictures sorry.
Pack Pulls
Here are the pack pulls from the Build & Battle Box packs and the 3 packs I won. No Special Illustration rare cards in my packs but I did get a few art cards and playable cards. I took these pictures when I got back home on my phone.
The store also gave away 2 old Prize Pack Series 6 packs to each participant. The organizer wanted to clear the stock. Getting the Night Stretcher was nice. It is a highly playable 5 CAD card that is hard to find these days. It is not normal for a prerelease store to give away these packs. We got big bonus prizes at this place.
Closing Notes
This Prerelease event was good. I got some playable cards that I wanted. Not getting a special illustration rare (SIR) was not a big deal to me. Getting the 3 wins & 3 packs was a good bonus too.
Each Pokemon TCG booster pack these days go for at least 10 CAD. With increased prices of packs, I no longer buy booster boxes nor gamble on loose packs. If I want to buy and open packs, I go to prerelease events every 3 months now. As I am play for swag type player, I buy mostly single cards and play in some tournaments to win stuff.
If there is a prerelease event in your area, I do recommend to give it a consideration. For newer players, the vibes at these events are more relaxed. You may face an experienced player but you could face a new player as well. Going to a prerelease event as a first tournament is best as it is low stakes. At a local Pokemon TCG event, a new player will be in the wild west facing against many Gholdengo ex, Gardevoir ex, Dragapult ex and other meta decks.
Thank you for reading.