We caught up with Tomi Sjoblom after he got knocked out from the Masters Division round of 16. Tomi is one of the top players out of Finland at this year’s World Championships. We talked about his performance and the very interesting deck he brought to the tournament.

Congratulations on a great World Championships. Are you pleased with how well you did?
Yes, this actually exceeds my expectations.

How long have you been playing Pokémon?
I’ve been playing for three years.

You qualified out of the Finland Nationals. How did you do there?
I finished sixth.

Finland has a big showing at the World Championships every year. Do you have a team that gets together and practices?
Yes, we practice together quite a bit. We even have summer camps to get better. We train really rigorously! [laughs]

Let’s talk about your deck. The star here is Regigigas and Regigigas LV.X. Why does it work so well?
Well, the best part of this setup is this Regigigas promo card with the Drag Off attack. It can be used to bring out Garchomp C, which is weak to Colorless-type Pokémon. And with an Expert Belt it’s a one-hit knock out. Players usually try to use Garchomp C LV.X to take out Azelf LV.X on the Bench, but this prevents them from doing that. Against other decks, I use it to take out their Claydol so they can’t draw more cards.

You also have Relicanth in there with the Grand Swell attack.
Yeah, it actually won my Top-32 game. I was able to use Grand Swell against a Crobat. With so many Energy Gain Tool cards in play, it always does a lot of damage. And since Relicanth is a Fighting-type Pokémon, it takes out Luxray, which is weak to Fighting types.

The other cool card is the Abomasnow.
Yes, it’s my Donphan counter. It also counters Entei & Raikou LEGEND well because it prevents my Uxie, Azelf, and Mesprit from getting knocked out. Entei & Raikou LEGEND’s Thunder Fall attack ordinarily does enough damage to knock them out, but Abomasnow’s Snow Veil Poké-Body keeps them around.

What kind of deck does this deck have the most trouble with?
Gardevoir and Gallade decks are pretty tough to beat. And of course Machamp decks take out all my Pokémon except for Abomasnow.

Does Mewtwo LV.X give you problems as well?
Actually, Drag Off will go through an Active Mewtwo LV.X, so that’s one reason I chose it.

How long have you been working on this deck?
I’ve been playing this deck or variations of it for at least a year. I did well in City and State Championships with it.

Have you seen other people playing this deck?
No, I think I’m the only one!

Do you think it’ll become more popular now that you’ve gotten so far?
Well, I hope so. But the Regigigas is a promo card and it’s very rare. It was hard to find three of them. So that might make it hard to get more popular.