Esports | Pokémon TCG | Ondřej Škubal — The 2-0 Masters Final in Hall N22 at ExCeL London

On Sunday, August 21, 2022, Czech player Ondřej Škubal and Japan’s Daichi Shimada faced one another across the Pokémon Trading Card Game Masters Division final inside Hall N22 at ExCeL London. The publisher-run Play! Pokémon World Championships had brought its invited TCG, video-game, Pokémon GO, Pokémon UNITE, and Pokkén Tournament fields to One Western Gateway for four days, with the official event guide placing the competition at ExCeL from August 18 through 21 and its venue FAQ naming Hall N22 (https://www.pokemon.com/us/news/excel-london-hosts-the-2022-pokemon-world-championships-from-august-1821; https://www.pokemon.com/us/play-pokemon/worlds/2022/faq). Škubal and Shimada reached the title match from a 210-player Masters field, and the final was a best-of-three Match: winning two individual games, rather than accumulating points across the weekend, decided the champion (https://www.dittobase.com/championships/events/worlds-2022; https://liquipedia.net/pokemon/Pokemon_Championships/Worlds/2022/TCG). For a non-player, the central race is visible through Prize cards: each competitor starts with six, normally takes them by Knocking Out opposing Pokémon, and wins a game after taking the last one, while powerful Pokémon V and VMAX can surrender multiple Prizes at once. This was a close deck mirror rather than a clash of unrelated strategies, because Pokémon’s published lists identify both finalists’ builds as Arceus VSTAR, Flying Pikachu VMAX, and Hisuian Decidueye VSTAR decks (https://www.pokemon.com/us/play-pokemon/worlds/2022/tcg-masters). The lists still differed in counts and supporting cards, and Škubal’s four copies of Boss’s Orders could move a chosen Benched Pokémon into the Active position; Nintendo Life’s contemporary account noted that this target control mattered during the final (https://www.nintendolife.com/features/round-up-pokemon-world-championships-2022-was-it-worth-the-three-year-wait). The card pool was equally specific: Worlds used the physical TCG’s 2022 Standard format, allowed Sword & Shield-series cards and later releases through the Pokémon GO expansion, retained cards bearing regulation mark D, and excluded ten named promotional cards that had not been distributed worldwide (https://www.pokemon.com/us/news/2022-pokemon-tcg-world-championships-card-restrictions-and-2023-rotation-information). Škubal won both completed games, defeating Shimada 2–0, and Pokémon’s official results list him as the Czech Masters Champion while the tournament record identifies Shimada as runner-up (https://worlds.2022.pokemon.com/en-us/results/; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjSnjLdbcGQ). The result made this table in Hall N22 the place where a four-day international card tournament resolved into two game wins, with a mirrored archetype leaving deck construction, sequencing, and Prize management to separate the finalists. The glass-pyramid entrance at ExCeL remains a public landmark on Royal Victoria Dock; the cover shows that entrance in 2021, not the match or its competitors. Photo: cropped from an image by Delegate Connect Images, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.