The 2018 North American International Championship is this weekend, July 6-8, in Columbus, Ohio, USA. It is the penultimate tournament of the 2017-18 season -- only the World Championships remain. At 1534 Masters, this will be the largest Pokémon TCG tournament of all time, eclipsing last season's NAIC (1356 Masters).
At a glance
Where: Columbus, Ohio, USA
Attendance: 1534 Masters, 278 Seniors, 172 Juniors
Format: Standard BRT-FLI
Defending Top 8 competitors:
Expected meta decks
Where: Columbus, Ohio, USA
Attendance: 1534 Masters, 278 Seniors, 172 Juniors
Format: Standard BRT-FLI
Defending Top 8 competitors:
- Tord Reklev, Norway
- John Kettler, USA
- Sam Chen, USA
- Igor Costa, USA
- Gustavo Wada, Brazil
- Ryan Sabelhaus, USA
- Andrew Mahone, USA
- Alex Krekeler, USA
Twitch links: Main stream / TCG stream
- Buzzwole variants (Lycanroc-GX; Garbodor)
- Zoroark-GX variants (Lycanroc-GX; Golisopod-GX; Garbodor)
- Malamar variants (Psychic toolbox; Ultra Necrozma-GX)
- Lapras-GX
- Greninja BREAK
- Zygarde-GX
- Garbodor variants
Live updates
Thursday night:
Thursday night:
- Rosters for each of the two pods (Blue and Orange) have been been posted. Thanks to Christopher Schemanske, you can see the rosters here and also see here which players with at least 800 CP are in which pod. (Of the 47 of those players at NAIC, 27 are in Blue and 20 are in Orange.)
- Some notes on the NA Top 16 race
Friday:
- Defending NAIC champion (and world #2) Tord Reklev announced on Twitter he will be playing "something surprising" today...
- On stream Round 1, Robin Schulz debuted a control-style Zoroark-GX deck with Oranguru, Team Flare Grunt, Delinquent, Counter Catcher, and Weakness Policy. It's possible other Limitless team members are playing the same deck, and it could even be the "surprising" deck mentioned by Reklev.
- As of Round 6, this is confirmed to be Reklev's deck choice.
- Some Brazilian players including Gustavo Wada and Nathalia Godinho Fernandez are playing a new Quad Hoopa SHL build.
- Day 2 players and decks. Several well-known players including James Arnold, Clifton Goh, Aaron Tarbell, and Dustin Zimmerman, are piloting a rogue Yveltal BREAK deck.
- Two notable players who needed to earn CP at this event to get their Worlds invites have done just that: James Arnold and John Kettler. Two others, Eric Gansman and Alex Wilson, fell just short.
- 15 of the NA Top 16 spots are now guaranteed. Alex Hill can win the tournament to knock Frank Percic out of 16th place. Jose Marrero will finish a mere 16 points shy of Percic.
Saturday:
- We now know the deck for every Day 2 competitor. (link)
- Day 2 Placements By Deck bar graph
