✎ Tate Whitesell / @twhitesell42
As the countdown to the 2019 World Championships continues, several competitive Pokémon TCG teams have been making changes over the past few days.
Back on July 14th,
Jimmy Pendarvis made the surprising announcement that he was parting ways with
Dead Draw Gaming. Pendarvis won four Regionals during the 2018-19 season and was an important part of DDG's dominance at North American tournaments throughout the season.
Now, the past two days have brought a flurry of changes, with a promising recently-announced team announcing its disbandment, and a handful of successful younger Masters players joining a new team.
Today,
ARG Europe announced they will no longer be continuing as a team. ARG Europe was announced in May 2019 as a sister team to the successful North American ARG roster, and featured some of the best and most recognizable players in Europe, including Joe Bernard, Mees Brenninkmeijer, Bert Wolters, and others. (You can read PokéStats's article on the original announcement
here.) The team posted this message on their Facebook page earlier in the day:
Dear Pokemon community.
Today, we have some unfortunate news. Due to internal issues, lack of communication and general misunderstandings, we have decided we no longer wish to support the ARG project.
This choice has not come about lightly with days of talks amongst ourselves, we decided this would be the best thing for us moving forward.
We would like to thank the community for their constant support, as always we wouldn't be able to do what we do without you.
We would also like to wish Jim [McMahon] and the rest of Alter Reality Games the best of luck with Argent Saga and their future projects, we appreciate the opportunity.
Please, stay tuned to our social medias as we progress forward.
Thank you.
We expect these talented players to find new teams to compete on before long, and PokéStats will update if and when that happens.
As if to say "with every ending comes a new beginning," only a day before the ARG Europe announcement, a previously little-known North American team announced a new roster for this coming season. The
Nerd Rage Gaming lineup features:
- Michael Catron
- Jonathan Croxton
- Ben Cryer
- Alec Geissler
- Wes Hollenberg
- Isaac Milaski
- Arlo Neel
- Alex Schemanske
- Evan Smith
Only Geissler was a previous member of the team, having joined in December 2018. Five other players who were on the team last season, including the three founding members from 2017, are no longer on the team. Every member of the new roster except for Smith had at least one Day 2 appearance at a Regional in the 2018-19 season. Croxton had a trio of Top 8 appearances (all with Shock Lock), Milaski had one Top 8, Catron had a Top 4, and Schemanske had a Top 8, a 2nd, and a Special Event win.
 |
Emery Taylor has become a fan-favorite
player after his 2019 NAIC finals
appearance. |
The Nerd Rage announcement comes shortly after
Top Cut Comics' announcement on the 19th that Hollenberg and Schemanske would be leaving their roster. While both of those two are strong players, Top Cut Comics made a move to make up for their loss by today announcing the addition of 2019 NAIC finalist
Emery Taylor. The Top Cut Comics team now consists of Taylor, Justin Bokhari, Zachary Bokhari, Will Jenkins, Justin Kulas, and Charlie Lockyer. Taylor
tweeted that he was "pleased" to be joining the team and to "be playing with this amazing group of guys."
Our friends at
Limitless have updated the team rosters in their database to reflect all of these changes, so you can continue to follow your favorite teams' and players' results with ease during Worlds and the beginning of the 2019-20 season.
