Charles Randall L-L

Since all the major tournaments in the Latin American region have concluded, I want to write something regarding the attendance differences from year-to-year in addition to a commentary on the function of the SPEs in the region. Clearly, there were a lot more tournaments in LATAM this year. TPCi cut one Regionals but almost tripled the number of Special Events. This increase in Special Events didn't necessarily create more opportunities to play for people who previously already had tournaments, but brought Tier Two events to new areas. Chile Chile saw incredible growth, and it’s worth pointing out here an interesting pattern in terms of allocation of events. Last year, it looked like TPCi was trying to spread out SPEs in terms of location (Mexico City and Queretaro in Mexico, Olivos and Buenos Aires in Argentina, Santiago and Serena in Chile) whereas this year they seemed to double down on locations with good attendance. For example, Mexico City got two SPEs this year...

Things in Ecuador have blown up. Somehow I managed to get myself involved and I have a very bad taste in my mouth. This all started when I reached out to Andrés Lerqué mid-2016. He lives in Guayaquil, Ecuador, and he plays Pokemon. He won the Ecuadorian National Championships in 2006 and ten years later he was picking up the game again. I was very curious about the state of Pokemon in Ecuador because my dad was born there and in general I like the idea of traveling to foreign places to play Pokemon. Andrés and I quickly became friends, trading stories and experiences about the Pokemon trading card game in our respective countries. Andrés traveled to Florida Regionals in 2016, and although I was not able to attend, some of my closest friends from Champaign went and Andrés ended up splitting a hotel with one of my locals. In the 2017-2018 season, the circuit started getting better in Ecuador. Andrés attended a League Cup in Autumn and sent me round by round updates during the tour...

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. -- Hello everyone, My name is Andrés Lerqué and I am from Ecuador, a small country in South America, which has beautiful landscapes and delicious cuisine. Here, I will tell you about my trip to Colombia and the adventure of participating in Bogotá's Special Event. I hope you like it. On March 31st of 2018, there was a TCG Special Event in Bogotá, an event that gave points equal to a Regionals with the difference being that they were run by independent organizers with the help of a store, and that they didn’t give the same prizes as a Regionals. I participated in said event, and at the request of some people, I decided to write a tournament report about what happened! Before anything, I would like to thank everyone involved with this adventure: God, my family, any friends that I still have in Ecuador's TCG com...

I had the most amazing week last month. On Friday, March 2nd, I flew to Guayaquil, Ecuador to play in their Special Event. On Sunday, March 4th, I flew to Quito and spent seven days with family. I'm going to give a quick tournament report and a rundown of my week. First of all, when I found out that Ecuador was going to have a Special Event, I really wanted to attend. OP in Ecuador really tapered off after 2007 or so, but it's been rekindled and it's back. This Special Event was Ecuador's first Tier Two TCG event since Ecuadorian Nationals in 2007. I justified making the long and expensive trip by fitting in a week in Quito to spend with family, most of whom I hadn't seen in four years. Friday was a pretty exhausting day. Since I wasn't sure about the reliability of the event, I booked round trip from Chicago to Quito, and a separate round trip from Quito to Guayaquil. This also allowed me to fly all the way to Quito with my grandma! My flight from Quito...

This year, every Regional and Special Event were announced for the US & Canada region beforehand. This was very helpful for planning the season ahead of time. This was much appreciated in general. This same courtesy needs to be extended to the Latin America and Oceania regions, as it would solve the "Colombia problem", fix stipend inequalities, and make things generally more convenient and less uncertain for all players. The Colombia Problem Source: Limitless Over Easter weekend, two Americans traveled to an SPE in Colombia. One of them went 0-5, which affected nobody, quite luckily. The other won the whole event though, causing a clamor for both keeping Latin American points in Latin America as well as the fact that this precedent of Americans traveling abroad would make the Day Two race that much more strenuous and expensive. Pokemon could avoid the "Americans in Colombia" problem by planning the whole season at once, including Latin America's Sp...