The 2025/2026 Pokèmon TCG Awards Show - 3rd Annual Shifties

Wah Wah Generals. Welcome back to the most important day on the calendar. Kyle Lowry gets retired as the greatest raptor of all time Day. We just came from watching that press conference, but in reality, it is the Shifties, the premier. Can we say that? I guess it's the only Pokemon TCG podcast or show. I think we. Someone tried to teeth it last year, but I don't. I don't know how they did. I never watched it. But this year I think we're the only award show we had. A lot of responses. Probably won't banter too much in this episode. I think people are here for the. For the content and as such, we came obviously in our suits. The koala bucket hat, which I felt matched the occasion, and these gold sunglasses that are really hurting my face. But, you know, we never break character over here at the Shift Gear podcast. I like the blue on blue, actually. That's pretty fresh. That's my. Go to the blue and blue. Got the polka dot? Yeah. Today, actually, I'm not in frame, but I've got the pocket square out too. That little extra little class. I couldn't find mine. I really wanted to wear it too. I couldn't find mine. We're recording, like, at a really weird time today because we just didn't have time to make this work just because we're not used to actually editing and doing stuff in our videos. So that's a whole allotment of time that we weren't prepared for. But anyways, so we have a lot to go over today. We could probably just get into it. I think that would be the best for the viewers as they've shared greatly in our Waste Men of the Year voting. So we'll skip the ban for this week. Yeah, I mean, we'll have banter, I'm sure, as we give out the awards. Thank you to everyone who voted. This is obviously just a fun thing for. For us and with the community to do so. Anil and I are excited to give out some awards and we have some great acceptance speeches from some of your favorite community members as well. So I know the first award that we're going to start with is the 60 of the year. So this is awarded to the player and the deck list that had the most impact this season. So we can go over the nominees. We had Dragapult Dusknoir by Alexander Udovich. We had Honchkrow by Zapdos dcg. We had Raging Bolt by Ian Robb. We had Gardevoir by Henry Chow. And we had Control Alakazam by Karris Jones and we had Noctowl Charizard by Oscar Madsen. So Anil, out of those, which one did maybe you vote for? What are your thoughts on some of these lists? You know, going through the list we were making the nominees, I was like, damn, it's actually kind of a hard one to vote for. Yeah, yeah. I think I voted for the Dragon Ball deck. I think that one was very widespread all over the place. When it comes to 60 of the year, it's a weird one because like there's obviously 60 cards that, that trend with people that people play that have a lot of limitless entries under the same 60. But I do think that those 60 card bases are often final refinements of decks. So I don't, it's not that I don't put a whole lot of weight into this award, it's just that I don't think too, too much of it just because it's kind of like a numbers game. Right. It's kind of like how popular is the deck that, that you've made the 64 and, and how many people are going to copy and stuff. So I think the, the achievement itself is obviously incredible. And I think what happens is right when that 60 is created, that's the moment that that deck turns right. Like that 60 is so influential in that deck's life cycle that that kind of influences how that deck is operated and built for the next little while. And so I think that's kind of where the prestige of the ward comes in. It comes in, that person innovates on that list. And then I don't think it's, it matters as much how many people copy it, but I think the, the 60 itself is what's important. Yeah, I mean like some of these decks, like when you go on like Limitless and see how many people played them is crazy. I think the Dragonfold Dustner one was the one that had the most play. Yeah. But then like I said, like there's some of them that are more like, I think innovative. Like I think Charis and the Dawns are, I think are the two most innovative lists on this list. Yeah, it's my knocked out Charizard deck. You know, Oscar Madsen created it, but it actually wasn't him who won the regional with it. I actually think I voted for that one because I think that one came kind of like a bit out of left field in a format where like Dragon or Charizard was kind of like seen as like a deck on the decline. I I do think the Dawn's art eventually fell off a little bit, but I thought that one was actually pretty cool. But I mean, all these decks I think were amazing. I mean, like, Henry too. It's hard because Henry plays so many different Gardevoir decks. The one like kind of we referred to is. Yeah, that kind of like straight guardy, frillish, scream tail deck. He was kind of playing towards the end of the format. A lot of top players I think picked up. So let's see who won the award. It goes to Mr. Henry Chow for Gardevoir, I think very fitting, you know, given that he is like the. The king of Gardevoir. Has so many, I think, lists that people took inspiration for throughout the season. Like, if you could combine all his Gardevoir lists into one, I think that'd be the most played. But we picked the. The one with the scream tale, the frillish, the one that he played to Toronto regionals and I think also to Merida. So we have an acceptance speech from Mr. Chow that we're gonna play now. And Neil, actually, this is your first time watching it. This is my first time watching it. Hey, how's it going, everyone? Today I am here to accept the award for 60 of the year on behalf of my Gardevoir deck from Toronto. So, yeah, I played this deck to two events, Toronto and Merida. I got top cut of both, but unfortunately I lost an ace in both times. But not really about me. It's about all the other people who took this deck, showed up and had really good results of this deck. So, yeah, want to give a special shout out to everyone who believed in me and decided to show up at the exact 60 and see what happened. And for the most part was pretty good. And yeah, the best result that this deck had was top eight at uic. And that was courtesy of Makani. I want to talk about Makani's thing in specific, for those who don't know, he actually slept through one of his rounds at uic. But I think he like pretty much won out or id'd every single other round and then was able to just get into top cut because he's the goat. So, yeah, that was super impressive. Shout out Makati for that. I'll talk a bit about the list now. List was nothing crazy, just a consistent build of Gardevoir. Had the two Arvens and the two Evos. Had the eight psychic energy. Real ones. Know how good that one is? Had the frillish for the Dango matchup. Fun Matchup and had the luxurious cape. It's probably the most. Most notable card in the deck. Fun fact about the luxurious cape is this is actually the second time I played luxurious cape to a tournament. First time was at NAIC 2024, where it was pretty much a completely dead card except when I hit shift gear's own Kieran Farah in round three. And I was able to close out one of the games by one, shotting a Lugia V star on the bench with the giant scream tail. So let's go look Dreescape. But, yeah, that's all I have to say. Shout out to the shift gears, Shout out to Kirit and Anil, Shout out to the viewers at home who voted, and shout out to gardevoir. Rest in peace. Thank you very much, Henry. It was a very thoughtful speech. We do. We do love the speeches and we appreciate you sending that in. Gardevar obviously had a lot of time in your heart and, like, I think all the time that you spent, like, playing that deck and kind of getting to the bottom of that deck really helps you kind of refine that 60. So I think the 60 is a product of a lot of experience and. And, you know, knowledge with the deck. So thank you, Henry, for that. Yes. Yeah, I was just gonna say, like, Henry, like, obviously one of the best players in the game. Like, it was. It's been tough for him to lose that Gardevoir, but he's had a lot of success, I think, with dragapult post rotation. Like, hasn't broken through the top eight yet, but I think, like, he gets, like, he finished, I think, in the cash, like, all his tournaments with that. So, you know, maybe that's his. His next deck. He's going to be known for, but probably in the history of the Pokemon tcg, I don't know if there's one deck that you associate with a player more than Henry Chow and gardevoir maybe towards. But no, no, I think for sure. So. All right, Neil, our next award, this is not going to an individual person. It's going to an individual card. We have what is the card of the year. And the nominees are as follows. Lily's determination. Meowth Ex, A Bond, Monkey Dory, Pheasant, if and Dracloak. So star studded lineup here for the cards. And, you know, what are your initial thoughts on this group of nominees? It's really hard to not give this one to a Bonds monkey dory. I'll be honest. I think I voted like three times, which is against, like, the shift Gear terms and conditions of voting for the shifties. I just really needed to make sure that. That this won. I don't know if it did. I actually, like, I looked at the results like a week ago, but I haven't looked since. So I don't really know what once. This is kind of a surprise to me too, But a bonds monkey dory certainly gets my vote. I think that was the most. Like, when I think back in the 25, 26 season, I think that's the thing that I think of the most. It's just like that whole tournament was just such a disaster in all the best ways. Yeah, that was definitely a really funny moment we have. That also dominated for stream moment of the year. So. Yeah, I think that, I mean, like the other cards, I guess the more serious ones. Lily's determination obviously is like the best supporter in the game. I think as soon as it came out, it made an immediate impact. And I mean, currently in standard, it's the. The best card for sure. We have meowth ex also coming out towards the end of the season, but super, super impactful. And then, you know, fez is just like. It's been a broken card, you know, ever since it got released a couple years ago. So. So yeah, Neil, the voting was fairly close on this one. The award went to Lily's determination. It just edged out a bonds monkey dory. So, I mean, right there for that monkey dory. But I just couldn't stand up to how strong of a card Lily's termination is. Yes, we try to contact Lily for a speech, but we were not able to get in contact. So maybe we can get Kieran to do a female voice to impersonate Lily and get us over the line here. Thank you, Kieran. Go ahead. Think I'm good. I don't want to speak for Lily on her behalf. Damn it. I don't want to put words. I honestly thought that was my moment. I thought I could get you to do it. Put you on the spot, you know, get you to do it. I've done like, like impersonating, like, female voices before. And like, it's fun in games until I like, try to bring my real voice back. And then I. I can't. I just can't do it. Like, my Adam's apple just disappears and it never goes. Never comes back. So I'm not gonna do it either. But if Lily was here, I'm sure she. She'd say like, you know, bare respects, gentlemen. Thank you for this award. It's. It's Bare honorable or something like that in Toronto slang. Sure. I'm sure that is what Lily would respond. She'd be determined to talk like that. So. Yeah. All right, moving on. Another award for, I guess not a person, but for a deck, we have the Rogue Deck of the Year. This is kind of given to a deck that kind of, you know, wasn't very meta and became meta or someone put something together and it had a lasting impact. So the nominees for this year were Hopps Trevenant, Slowking and Mega Absol Box. So I think three decks that, you know, all had success. I mean, Hops Chevron is the most recent one. It won the Italy spe. We had, you know, Slow King also at that tournament, kind of really popping off and we've seen it throughout the season. Like, have a lot of like, you know, sneaky, like asym cuts and stuff. And then we also had Mega Absol which when the Mega Evolution setup set came out, you know, Tord obviously like built that deck and like, I think a lot of players had success with that deck right before rotation. So Neil, where do you kind of sit with which deck is deserving of Rogue of the Year? I don't know. I think Mega Absol was just so, like, it was such a big deal that it's really hard to vote against it. I remember sitting at the beer wall in Milwaukee when like, everyone just like just kind of cranked that one into the spotlight and just like talking with some of the fellows and it just. It really did feel like that everybody who was on Mega Absol was at such an advantage to everybody else just because the deck was so innovative and so broken. Had kind of answers to everything that, yeah, it just, it made a huge difference in that tournament, in the tournaments going forward. It wasn't the exact same with Slow King and Hops Trev. Like Hops Trev obviously took that one tournament by storm, but it didn't really have like continued success, whereas Mega Absol was a thing for like months after. So to me it's Mega Absol. But I think all three are. Are probably good candidates here. Yeah, I think objectively it's not close. It should be Mega Absol. I did vote for Hobbs Chevin because I think that one's cooler. But yeah, it was a runaway, this one. It was Meg Absol that is going to be awarded the Rogue Deck of the Year. You know, obviously Tord is, you know, I think you have to give credit to, for, for originally coming up with, with the concept, but yeah, tons of players just like took this deck, the Japanese players actually probably I'd say took it to the highest levels. You know, a couple of regional wins for them with that. So, yeah, definitely the rogue deck of the year. And I mean, kind of cool that everyone thought like the cards like Mega Absol and the. The Megas are gonna be really bad. And then, you know, they ended up actually being their. Their own super, super strong deck. It has. I like Absol's hair. Mega Absol. It's got hair like the lead singer, Mariana's Trench. What the hell is that guy's name? I don't know what. I know what you're talking about. You know what I'm talking about. His hair like, like swoops down to like the left. It's pretty dope. Yeah. It just reminds me Mariana's French. Good. Canadian band. Nice. All right, sticking with the deck theme, we are going to move over to the overall deck of the year Anil. And this time it was really a two horse race, even though there was a couple more decks nominated. So I'm not even gonna mention the third deck nominated. We had Dragapult versus Gardevoir Ex for deck of the year. So obviously Gardevoir did not get to compete after rotation for this. But it was so impactful, I think, you know, leading up to rotation that I think it was worthy of going up against Dragapult. So, Neil, where do you kind of sit on what you think the deck of the year should be? This one's hard. This is like, definitely, I think the hardest, like 50, 50 we have on this balance sheet. It's so hard to just quantify, like Pokemon deck first Pokemon deck in a yearly circuit. And I think there is a lot that goes into playing in a whole year, but a year is also not a lot of time in Pokemon. Not. Not enough for me to kind of differentiate between these two. I do think overall, maybe this is slightly recency bias, but I do think Dragapult overall would be my pick. It obviously has dominated to like crazy levels recently, which I don't think Gardevoir ever really did this year in terms of play rate. That's. That's mostly because there were just better decks around it before rotation. Not that Garden wasn't dominant, but just off statistics alone, I'd probably lean towards striker Pult a little bit. Yeah, for me, I think Gardevoir, like at its peak is definitely much better than Dragapult. I think we saw that with how many tournaments took down. But like, you are right in the sense of that Dragapult its play rate has skyrocketed. It's like the clear number one post rotation. And it's not like it was a bad deck before rotation. It was doing well like before that too. So I think both are worthy nominees but only one can win and the deck that did win was Dragapult Ex. So congratulations to Dragapult. Exactly. A big, big year for the deck and like just the card's evolution I think over time. When it originally came out in Twilight Masquerade, I think the deck was actually a big flop to now you know where it's progressed to the best deck in the game. So big, big jump for drag Pull Ex. I would like to shout out some of the the off choices that were submitted in our forum. Sometimes we have Ted Tobin Ex for this, this one here. Some guy named Victor Lou and Yona Pachi. All honorable mentions for the deck of the year. Nice. Very honorable. Our believer Dust more Ethan's mag Cargo deck. Some of these are like jokes dude. Like, like if you look through the responses I'm sure you have like some of these are hilarious. Like people what people submitted. We got armor real ones. Get it. We get it with Crobat. Crazy. All right. We got some stuff. We got. I know that is. It is actually always funny. Like we're getting through the extra things that people write for us. So yeah. All right, next up we have stream moment of the year. I'm sure Anil and I forgot to put some on the ballot. There's so many but we picked some. I think that you know we're the most viral maybe. So the nominees are. We had the single prize Feasante with a million energy at Naic. We have a Bond's monkey dory fiasco. We have Karrison Makani running it. Back in top four we have Sarah Ledgemir in the San Juan finals. And then finally we have Liam takes a game off Tord using Blood Moon Ursaluna plus Watchtower plus 5 energies into Cornerstone. So lots of fun moments. Anil, are there any maybe on here that we forgot that you're thinking of that we could have put on here? No, not really. I think you and I are both very self admitting that we don't watch a ton of stream or at least not live while the tournaments are happening because normally we're playing in them. So I'm sure there is stuff that we miss, we try to go through and this is why we need the community to kind of help us and pick us up in this, this category specifically. So I don't really have anything outstanding besides those. I normally think like when I think stream moment of the year, like I'm not really thinking epic plays and maybe this is just true to my personality. I'm more thinking like things that are just hilarious, like just. Just joke stuff that happened on stream that I shouldn't. And like I know there's a lot of submissions here for like Larry missing the cruel arrow play, which is one that a lot of people put in there. That's like, I think that's funny. Watching it back, I think he'd look back and like kind of laugh at it. So I'm okay with including that one clip. Makes that a moment like the. The actual play that happens all the time. People just like misaligned. But that was just like Azul's clip was so funny after. Yeah, it's like it's a fine line mystery moment of the year. Like you don't want to put up stuff that's like embarrassing to people. Right. So it's like just the stuff that's like funny and people can like take it in good humor and I think he would take that one in good humor. So that's like one that I think that would stand out to me for this year. So the voting on this one was actually quite close. Anil. But in the end it did go to, I think a cool play. It did go to Liam taking a game off Tord using that blood moon watch tower five energy strategy. And I mean I think that was actually a pretty cool finals because on paper it was like Liam should have zero way to win and he actually almost pulled it off even taking a game off Tord. I think Tord actually didn't even see it coming is what he said in that one game. So I think really cool that we had a skill based play. I think it was back to back years where we've had a skill based play. I think last year Riley won with that tactical pass. So cool to see the community rewarding high level play. And Liam actually Neil sent us a reward speech with a special guest and he's actually, he's on vacation right now and I think you're gonna enjoy where he sent in this video from. Let's do it. Yo, what's up everyone on the shift gear? I apparently got nominated for the stream moment of the year which is pretty cool. It was for my gaming against Tord. That one was really fun. Tour is really cool and awesome to play against. That was a fun game. I'm on a boat right now we're in China. Tell him to bring out the Holo. Yeah, what he said. Oh, man, that's class. That's class. He's in China. He's in China. And with G, the nice little guest appearance there, I. I really enjoyed that speech. That's definitely, definitely up there for me in terms of ones I've enjoyed the most. Just because he's on a boat in the middle of nowhere and he just decided to make that video. Yeah, they gotta bring out the whole ocean. Shout out, DJ Khaled. Yeah. Yeah. It's on a boat, baby. Yeah. That was. That was fun. I know, I know. Liam and some of the. The younger players, they're. They're enjoying China right now. It seems like a lot of people have been going to China and playing Pokemon. I think they're just going on vacation. But yeah, I mean, like, I. I don't know about you, but, like, I want to get out to China one day and play a tournament out there. I think it'd be super cool. I like their format a little bit better. I'd agree with you. Yeah, they're playing Lugia, bro. I don't like it. No, thanks. I'll stay. I'll stay on this side of the world for now. That was like a while ago. This is a few months ago. Like, someone bought my Lugia guide. I'm like, wait, why would somebody buy my luggage guide? And I looked and it's like some guy from China bought it. I'm like, oh, okay, that makes sense. Like, yeah, because I guess that's the format they were in. So I thought that was kind of funny. So, yeah, that is our stream moment of the air. Thank you a lot to Liam for sending that in and hope you enjoy the rest of the vacation with your friends. All right, Neil, our next award is the rookie of the year. So this is awarded to the first year master who had the most impressive season. So I only had two nominees for us. I might have missed someone, but these are the two players who stood out to me the most. We had Joseph Bjerg and we had Justin Templer. You know, both of them were very strong senior players. Me and Joseph had top four Worlds last year. Justin's won multiple ICs and or so many regionals won IC. And both of them had great first years in Masters. Both of them had tons of day twos. Justin had a top cut. Laic. Joseph had a couple top cuts as well. I actually played against them in Merida. Top cut. But then he also had a top Cut in one of the SPEs. So I think both great players. Yeah. I don't know how much you keep up with the rookie race and do you have any thoughts for this award? Yeah, maybe I'm getting old, but I'm not keeping up too much of the Utes, especially not the ones that just age up to Masters, so I don't have a whole lot to add to this. I think they both had great years, like, just judging off what I see off Limitless and on Twitter and stuff. So I. I'm sure they are both very worthy recipients of this award, but I don't have much else to add, which is probably a good thing for. Yeah, it'd be kind of weird if I was friends with like 17 year olds, so it's probably good that I'm not. Well, Neil, we can give out the award. That and it was Justin Templer who won, I think, you know, a very impressive jump to Masters for him. You know, it is so impressive to me. Like, a lot of these, like, like kids, like, they're, they're good in seniors and like, you know, like, Masters is a big jump up, but it seems like they all handle it, like, super well. So, I mean, like, the level of gameplay I think senior has gotten to, especially like the last year seniors is like, it's just like, such a high level. So seniors builds confidence too. Right? Like, there's. There's a certain, like, value to just being kind of, like, naive to nervousness and like, stuff like that. You see it a lot in sports where, like, guys will come up on, like, rookie contracts or whatever, just, like, tear up the majors for the first, like, couple days and then they, like, come back down to earth when they realize, like, all right, this is the real deal. But the naivety, like, really carries you. And I think that's why we see so many, like, really good utes come up from seniors and do well in Masters in their first year. I think there's definitely something to be said about that. Yeah. Yeah. The level of seniors is, like, so different from when you and I were kids. Like, it's insane. Yeah. So super, super impressive to see them age up and do so well. So. All right, our next award, Anil, is we have the breakout player of the year. So this is kind of awarded to the player who kind of made a name for themselves, kind of took the jump this year from, like, you know, could be great player to like, like superstar level or. Or just like, you know, like, just becoming a great player and like, getting that Those high place finishes. So we have quite a few nominees for this one. We have Emma Hagan, we have Ted Tobin, we have Karis Jones, we have Noah Secuzian, and we have Joseph Moussad and we also have James Kowalski. All out Blitzel. So lots of great names on that list. Neil. Any of them really stand out to you for what they've achieved? Because he's on every single, every single thing that we put out for voting. Someone's voting Ted Dohman for everything. But in all seriousness, he had a really good season. I do think this one could basically go to any of those people. Like, there's so many good candidates and I think this is one that was really, really close. Looking at the results, it was still really, really close. And it kind of came down to, I mean, at the end you can kind of see a little bit of a breakout from this player that won right towards the end of the season. So maybe there's a little recency bias in it. There's a lot of, a lot of truth to it too. Huge year from the player that won and all the players on that list really. So honestly, I couldn't think of a player on here that doesn't deserve it. Yeah, I think, for sure. I think a lot of these players took a big step up this year. I think all of them are now like almost like household names for a lot of the community. You know, you see them on a, on a standing thing, you're like, oh, like I expect them to be, to be up there for sure. So it ended up being close, Neil. But the player who did win was Caris Jones and I think she's definitely a worthy recipient. She had honestly like a superstar level season, you know, obviously winning a regionals, but she also had a few more top cuts to go alongside that. She really innovated with that Alakazam list that we even nominated her for the 60 of the year. So yeah, I think she's just very clearly become one of like the stars in the game now. And I think this was. She was already, I think, like, you know, like a strong player coming into the season. But I think now she's like really solidified herself as one of the top players in the game. So very well points game too for, for the Alzheimer deck, because that was sick. I think that's. That definitely adds points to like people talk about like, what is the criteria for who should win an award or whatever. I think like there are always external factors and that is like one of them where like the deck that she won with was so cool and so innovative that I think that also gains you points. It's like being a breakout player. You're also clearly a breakout deck builder. So I think there's. There's definitely levels to this stuff. Yes, I think that's. Yeah. Speaking of like, breakout deck builders, I mean, like the person who finished in second, like Emma Hagan, like, she had a fantastic season with Flareon specifically, you know, a deck that, you know, kind of like, I don't think all the community, like, respected a lot or like, kind of like wrote off and like she kind of just piloted it. She was like one of the. The only people who pilot it and she just kept having so much success becoming like a master of that archetype. So, yeah, definitely, like, it is like, there is something to be said about people who like, innovate and not only, you know, show off with their play, but with their deck building skills as well. So lots of really great nominees for this one and well deserved for Keras. All right, Anil, next up, we are going to do the locations. The best and worst location. Yeah. All right, Danielle. So we got this one. Wasn't one where we like, made a ballot. We just let people type stuff in and then, you know, and I are gonna decide what we think should win. So, Neil, why don't you kind of take the reins here and walk us through how awarded this. Yeah. So, all right. Best tournament location. Obviously, Kieran and I do travel quite a bit. We've been to a lot of these places, but there are places that we haven't been to. So we relied on the community to kind of carry what this should be. And to be honest, there was a lot of different answers. We can't pick Toronto because we're homers, obviously. Like, we picked Toronto like, rig. You're like FIFA like Yanni and Fantino into. So we're not going to do that, but we are going to give the best tournament of the year or best Pokemon tournament location. Not even of the year. They didn't even have a regional this year. But the best Pokemon tournament location to Peoria, Illinois. Congratulations to Peoria. I think we. We had like, what, two tournaments there between like 2022 and 2025. And I still think we probably account for like 90% of their tourism income within that time. So. Shout out, Pokemon player. Shout out, Peoria, Illinois. Huge win for. For Illinois. Is this the biggest upset in the history of Pokemon, Peoria? It might be, yeah. It might be. This is like the equivalent of like Michael Jordan Getting snubbed from the hall of Fame, like, if that were to happen, like, that's kind of what this is, winning the Premier League type of stuff. Yeah, yeah, sure, I like that actually. But it's like that's like this is like if Leicester City, like basically like bought their way to the top of the Premier League, like, there's no way that Peoria would ever win. I just think the upset is. Is historic and completely unprecedented. I don't think there's any sort of comparisons, but moving on from that to the worst location. So this is another one that we had a lot of entries for. People are very passionate about what is the worst Pokemon location. This one, hilariously, I think was actually won by Peoria, Illinois. So we're also going to award this to Peoria, Illinois, the best and worst Pokemon tournament location in history. I mean, I don't really have very many stories about period Illinois. I have more for like Hartford and like Baltimore, like those kinds of places. When we talk about like worst Pokemon location. But Peoria, Illinois, obviously very rustic, we'll call it connected to an arena, I'm pretty sure, and in the quite literally the middle of nowhere. So there wasn't much to do there. And I think it's only fitting that such a exciting, lively place wins the best and worst Pokemon tournament location of this year. Yeah, the duality of Peoria. So big congratulations to Peoria for best location. Big upset. We're really proud of you. But then also, unfortunately, you were also voted the worst, so we had to balance it out. All right, next up, I think this is the award that people on Twitter cared the most about. I saw a lot of people campaigning for this. We have the Yapper of the year. You know, we have lots of great nominees. This is kind of given to the person mainly on Twitter, but throughout the whole community, who entertains us the most is just a high tier quality yapper. So we have lots of people to nominate. Normally this is Jake Gearhart's award, but I feel like this year he really took a step back from the yapping. So, you know, out of respect, we removed him from the ballot this year. But you know, Jake Earhart, you will always be an A tier yapper to us. Or S tier, I should say. But this year the nominees are Yone Pachi, Austin, Charles Pokedouls, All Out, Blitzel, Anthony and she Nasty. So, Neil, all these people, I think whenever I open Twitter, I'm seeing tweets from at least one of them, probably multiple of them. Every time I open the app and oftentimes it does put a smile on my face. So Neil, do you have a favorite yapper out of these people? Or maybe there's a yapper on here that we didn't nominate that you think is also someone we should have, you know, consider for the. Yeah, there's a lot of mans who need to be subscribing to X Premium to try and like monetize their tweets because they'd just be tweeting like a lot. And like, I think there's a lot of, a lot of clicks. I think we tied up all like the impressions and clicks on all of our nominees this year. We'd be well into the millions. I do think that some people, they yap better than others, so to speak. So I think there's like levels to this stuff. I think like some people just tweet to tweet and there's some people that like actually put thought and like they, they don't just rely on the fact that I am this person. I'm going to get clicks no matter what. And they really put thought into their craft. And this really, when you think about it, is all just for fun. No one's really making life changing money off talking crazy on Twitter. And I guess it does help when you put out a guide or something to have a huge following and stuff like that. But generally this is love of the game stuff. And I know I did come on here last week and Austin was not happy with me because I went on here and I told everybody to vote against Austin. And I think what happened is it kind of prompted more people to vote for Austin. So you're welcome. But I think everybody on this list is a great recipient of this award. We legally have to say that, but I think everyone is great. So we have a lot of interesting ones in there too. Like people like when people were like writing in or whatever, some guy just wrote me, how the hell am I supposed to know who that is? Yeah, like I don't know who that is. But we had some interesting write ins for sure. Yeah, I think we saw what's it called, some nominations for Azul and I'm like, you know what, Azul is actually low key, a sneaky after. He doesn't. He's not a volume player but he's definitely a quality player right there. But I just don't think, I just don't think he has the volume like the total stats to keep up with the other people on the board here. So this was a very close race. But in the end, I think the, the favorite one, Austin Charles did take it, despite us doing our best or the community doing their best to campaign against him at the end. I mean, this is a guy who just, you know, you open Twitter like this guy's just non stop. But you know, sometimes, sometimes there is some good yapping in there too. He posts a lot of deck lists, you know, helping out people that way. So I think that the. That's quality yap youp know, there's the entertainment, there's the. There's a trolling, but there's also like, you know, like the actual Pokemon tcg. So I think he embodies what it means to be a high quality apper and that is why he's been awarded the app for the year. I actually think he does really, really well with it for what it's worth. Like the, the quality of the stuff he puts out, it's not crap like I've happen like IRL all the time. Like he'll just be chilling and like you'll think nothing will be happening. He'll just be chilling like having a beer or whatever. And 20 seconds goes by and he's wor. He's sent like a five line tweet that's like the biggest banger you've ever read in your life. He really has a knack for this stuff and it, it does kind of hurt me to like muff up his chops in that sense. Like. But he is really good at what he's doing, so definitely deserved yapper. He will not shut up on Twitter and I think it's great. And he has a, even for his acceptance speech he sent me, he's like, yo, my acceptance speech, is it too long? Was I yapping too much? I was like, I don't know, bro. I didn't even, I didn't even watch it. So let's watch it together. The minute and 20 of Austin Charles talking more. Just what we needed. Let's do it. What is up? Shift gear Podcast listeners. I have recently been informed that I actually did win the app of the year. Thank you guys so much. Special shout out to Kieran and Anil for putting the podcast on every year. I'm a big fan, a long time listener. We were up for yapper of the year last year. We fell short. But it's. It is so awesome to kind of see the come up this year. Big fan of the podcast. Yeah. Shout out to my team. Shout out to my discord. Shout out to everybody who campaigned for me and endorsed Me, all you guys. I really do appreciate it. I love doing this, man. I love the Pokemon tcg. I love talking about it. Just. Just talking about it is fun. My own opinions sometimes coming up. Just kind of getting into it. I mean, Twitter can be scary or x.com be a scary place, but it is what you make it, and it's just really cool. Like, I appreciate every single person. I know it's cliche to say, but I wouldn't be here doing this without everybody who follows, interacts and just kind of listens to me app. So anyways, also a reverse shout out to Neil for saying on the podcast last week that he doesn't want everyone to vote for me. That is crazy. But I think he knew it was over. I mean, we were. We had the lead. We held the lead. And thank you guys so much. And shout out the off season. I'm actually enjoying it. I'm at the beach right now. And special shout out to all the other competitors that were up for Yaffer of the Year. I love you guys. I love the banter. I love the back and forth. Yeah. Wouldn't be here without you guys either. All right. In hindsight, that was a little long, but I think it was great. Yeah, I appreciate the reverse shout out. For real. For real. It is my job to op you out, so you do the same for me. So congratulations, man. You. You talk a lot. God damn, bro. I don't know how you do it all the time, but he's enjoying the off season. Like. Like he's an NBA player. Like, going golfing or something. Yeah. Really? We just play cards. And we know, man. We know you love the Pokemon TCGs, so that is. That is good. Makes. Makes one of us. So. All right, moving on from Yapper of the Year. And, you know, I think this is a new. I think there's a new award this year. We have. Or no, wait, no, we didn't. We've given this out before. I think we have. I can't remember if we have. Which one is this? We have the Waste man of the Year. Oh, yeah. This has been around. This has been around. Okay, well, Simon won it last year. You don't remember? That was Griefer. No, that was, like, two years ago. Oh, maybe we just renamed it. Maybe we renamed it. I can't remember. But we had who is the Waste man of the Year? And we said on the palette, blindly choose one of these names strictly on who you think the biggest person is. So we had Charles Ames, Simon, Jake, Dadkin. Our Raptors correspondent. And then we had Anil in brackets for the first eight to 10 minutes of the pod. And Anil, I am sorry to say, but this is. The award was the biggest landslide out of all of them. It is awarded to you, Aneel. You are the Shift Gear podcast Waste fan of the year. Guys, I can't begin to explain to you how much this means to me. To be the premier Waste man of the Pokemon community is like, the greatest thing ever. I wish that it wasn't in brackets for the first eight to ten minutes of. I wish it was just like irl, like, all the time. Just like complete waste of oxygen. Like, that would be a real honor to me, but I'm happy to be recognized. This is a big landslide, over 50%. We definitely take those. And I curated a very beautiful, special speech about where I started versus where I will be after this award. This award will do great things for me. And we're up. We're up. We're so back. So I will. I'll play my speech right now. All right, what's going on, y'? All? I want to come on in. The stupidest stuff I could find. Obviously, I bought all this drip with my shift gear. You know, monetary gain that I got from winning the Shifty. And thank you all for voting me for the Waste man of the Year. It is really hard. Sometimes I wake up, I'm like, yo, I don't even know if I want to be a Waste man today. But thankfully, the griefer inside me always runs true. And for the first eight to 10 minutes of every episode, I'm there to ruin your lives. So I'm really happy that you voted me for Waste man of the Year. It's really tough to do it every time, but I'm glad you guys appreciate the effort we put in. I hope you enjoy the rest of the show. Obviously, winning the Shifty comes a great monetary gain. The Shift Gear said they could afford to give me $60 for winning this award. So thank you to the Shift Gear Podcast. Very generous. They also gave me a gift card that expired 12 years ago. So thank you to the Shift Gear. Enjoy the rest of the show. Well, thank you everybody for watching my step in speech. Obviously, the monetary value given to me for winning the Shifty will feed me for generations. Started from the bottom. For real. For real. But now we're so up. So thank you very much, everybody for including me as the Waste man of the Year. I might get a T shirt made or something. I think this is a really big honor for Me and future generations of me as well. If I ever have Utes, I will let the utes know their dad is the waste man of the year. So huge thank you. Big dub for you, Neil. All right, next year we have or next year next up we have Neil, this is an award you'd I give out. We have the Shift Gear fan of the year. So I mean this is just given out to who we think is supports the Shift gear the most. We see in the comments section, you know, always giving us high, high quality banter and discussion. So you know the person who we are awarding it to. I don't think I've ever seen a Shift Gear episode without them in the comments. They're always, you know, hyping us up, tagging us on Twitter and they're actually going back to back and yell. Because Viraj, we are giving you fan of the year back to back. One of the few people to ever go back to back in the shifty. So Viraj and Neil and I both really appreciate all the support and we appreciate everybody who supports Shift Gear podcasts. But Raj, we're giving you the number one honor as the back to back fan of the Year. It takes a lot to actively support us. Half the time our content is quite literally garbage. So we really appreciate you doing this week after week. It is a full time job and we like to recognize it as such. And anytime we tweet something or put some in the discord or whatever, like Farage is always there kind of getting our back. So we shout, shout out bro. For real. Not that this is an award anyone would want, but if there is people that do want the fan of the year award next year, we gotta see, we gotta see some change in the comments. You know, you gotta, gotta give us some banter or something. Let us know down below if you want to be the fan of the year next year and we'll, we'll start taking names down from now. But it is a very prestigious award in a full time job. So we really do appreciate you, Viraj for pretending to like our content all the time. Yeah, I think you're too harsh on us sometimes, but always. All right, Anil, we're down to our last award of this year's shifties. It's the big one. It's the most valuable player for the season. You know, we've had Henry Chow win last year, we had Hedrick win the year before and this year we had a star studded cast of people on the ballot. You know, so I'll go through them one by one. We have Mr. Tord Reclave. You know, wide regard is the best player in the game. Debatably the goat followed up. We have Liam Halliburton on the ballot, the number one player from North America this season. Right behind him we have a Bon who had a crazy start. The season kind of cooled off a little bit but got a top cut at NYC to really bookend a great season from him. We had Karis, you know, our breakout player of the year. Like that's how strong the season she had that she, she's also on the ballot for the MVP. And then finally we had Gumi 35, aka Justin Newdorf. So some titans of the game here. Neil, where's your head at kind of in terms of who your MVP is? This is like this is the NBA MVP or whatever sports where it's like you're fighting between stats and names and popularity and all that stuff. Especially when it's like a fan voting system system. I think you get that a lot. So my initial hunch and like obviously I know already but my initial hunch would have been to go to Torah just because he has like the name and, and all that stuff. But I think there are some like incredible players here. Like I think Liam really showed what he was worth this year. I think he, he locked the hell in and he figured out like I'm that guy and, and he is that guy and I'm glad he's like getting to that level. And I, and I think I'm positively going to cook up something crazy for worlds that continue the season that he's put on. Even the others that were nominated there like, like Caris and Justin Newdorf, like there's some real, some real big hitters there. So I think there are a lot of good cases for a lot of them. I do think though it is probably a two horse race when it comes down to the end of it between Tord and Liam, at least for myself. And I actually would have voted for Liam to be honest. And I think I did vote for Liam. Yeah, I think he had I think across the year like so much consistency like consistently making top cut. He really innovated that Zorark deck. You know, he, he won the regional with it and then like just some more top cuts like top cut and IC Naic. He didn't make it to top cut but he got top 16 with a Drapion build which was like a crazy innovation. So yeah, I think he took the jump from like stardom to Superstardom this season. He's a sports analogy where he's like, clearly put himself in that S tier and then toward, you know, just great season. Winning a regionals top cut at Nice once again, just finishing number one in, in Europe. I feel like almost like a quiet number one season for him. It's like, is this kind of what we expect from Torrid? You know. Yeah. At this point. So. And you know, this was actually out of all the awards in the ballot, this was the closest one. Actually looking at it now, the. The winners were separated by. By 3 percentage points, but the person who is the MVP is Mr. Tord Reclave. You know, I mean, I don't know what, what to say. He's. He's debatably the goat. And you'll. Yeah, I think you and I used, you know, when we did our rankings a couple years ago, we had, we had Jason number one. But does adding a shifty's MVP to your resume, is that enough to bump you to goat status? Jason doesn't have a shifty. He doesn't, but he would have back in the day. It doesn't matter though, Neil. He doesn't have. I don't know, man. Like, I, I covered. I was at Alan Zoo's birthday party on Saturday, and Eric Milioski actually like, airdropped me an old photo of, like, you guys with like, Jason Kaczynski and like, Sky Fox or something. It is hilarious to see how, how young everyone looks. But I think Jason was our goat growing up. It's like kind of talking to boomers about Jordan versus LeBron. It's kind of the same thing. Like, we grew up with LeBron, they grew up with Jordan, and you' going to go with who you grew up with. And because you, you are in the moments where they did those great things. And I think when it comes to, like, goat debates, I actually think, like, context is so important. And like, a lot of people that are voting on goat debates now never watch those people play or have no idea what those people really did. They saw the highlights and they're like, okay, sick. But what that player does, game in, game out, or whatever, in whatever context we're talking about it in. I think, like, being alive and like, watching through those things is really, really important to have a lot of credibility into a goat debate. So for us, we've kind of seen both happen, right? Like, we saw the latter end of Jason's career, plus more or less the entirety of Tord's career. And I think now I can confidently Say, I do think Tord is the goat above Jason. Because of the shifty. Yeah, you're right. Because of the shift. Yeah. I think I can confidently say this award carries so much merit that has carried him to the top of the Pokemon TCG leaderboards forever and forever. There you go, Tor. Big congratulations on your season and becoming Aniel's goat with the addition of a shifty. So, yeah, that's all huge awards to be given out. So, I mean, we went off what the community voted, so you can't get too mad at us in the comments if we didn't give the award to the person that you wanted to win. But let us know if there was any snubs or any awards you think we should add on the ballot for next year. So Anil and I appreciate everyone who voted. This is just, like, a fun initiative him and I started the past few years. We always look forward to it every year. And big congratulations to all the winners. We've sent your award certificates to each of you. So, yeah, congrats on a great season of Pokemon. Neil, anything to add? Monetary amounts are in the mail. They're coming to your house right now. We need to actually get the sponsor for this. I think that'd be hilarious, like, if we got, like, someone to, like, I don't know, like, hello Fresh or something to sponsors, we can send them, like, chicken to their house or something. That'd be hilarious. But, yeah, no, thank you, everyone, for voting. Like, this is, like, obviously our. Our biggest episode, I think, each year, and it's the most fun that we have, I think putting on an episode just because we get to, like, do stuff we normally don't do. And after three years of the shift gear, you do need to keep it fresh sometimes. So it is nice to go out and do this. And everyone who interacted, we got a lot more buzz this year, I think. I think, like, last year was big, but this year was even bigger. There's people, like, tweeting about it all the time and doing stuff like that. So we appreciate all the people that are spreading awareness of it. Obviously, if there's anything we can do better, let us know with the ballots and stuff like that. Like, we're always looking next year to. To plan another event and for us as well, like, this is the end of our season kind of thing. Like, I think we look back on it a little bit, not in terms of metrics, but in terms of how far the shift gear has come. And we're all thankful for the people that were on the ride with us. So, yeah, conclusion of many sorts for the 2526 season, but obviously we still have Worlds outstanding. So everyone who's been with us, we appreciate it. And especially, let's send in acceptance speeches. It seems like you're all on vacation, so we appreciate taking the time out of your day to send us those. Yeah, that's all I got. Nice. All right, well, thank you, everyone, for another great season. And we'll be with you here for many to come, hopefully. Yeah. Talking about boring stuff for the next, like, eight weeks, probably till Worlds. Yeah. If there's anything else, let us know down below. If we missed anything, let us know down below. Also, I forgot to put this at the top of the episode, but a big, big shout out to Paolo. From Paolo to the peak. He's the one who made all the graphics for us. They're incredible. It helps the award certificate, so it really, like, definitely elevates the production value of this episode. And, like, we could not have done that without him. So big, big shout out to him. We'll put all his stuff in the description for sure. So big thank you to Paolo for sure. Does he do graphic design, like, for trade? Like, should we promote people to go like, oh, yeah, I've worked with him before on stuff besides the shift. He's like, fantastic what he does. So. So if you guys need graphic design stuff, that's your guy. If you like these. These graphics, hit him up on Twitter or wherever you can find him. We'll. We'll have his links. Show our boy some love. He does this all out of love of the game for us, so we really do appreciate that, but that is it. We have our links down in the description. Sign up for Karen's camp for Worlds. I'll shield it since he won't. And that's all we got. If you're new here, please subscribe and like, and we will see you next week. Thank you. Peace.