✎ Tate Whitesell / @twhitesell42
Update: As a clarification, PokéStats is using "team" to refer to a testing group or close association of players, and not necessarily implying that every "team" has a financial partnership with a store or other company. Neither Team Rocket's Hideout nor NLF currently has such a financial partnership. -TW
As part of our ongoing effort to keep readers informed of developments in the world of competitive Pokémon TCG teams, PokéStats brings you some relevant updates from this past weekend. One highly-regarded North American team is shutting down, but many of its former members have found a home at an exciting new team and article site. On the other side of the world, some of the Oceania region's top players have formed a new team in an attempt to solidify that often-overlooked region's reputation on the international stage.
"Sad" news first: the Top Cut Comics competitive team announced on August that it was officially disbanding. At the time of the announcement, the TCC roster was comprised of Justin Bokhari, Zach Bokhari, Justin Kulas, Will Jenkins, Charlie Lockyer, and Emery Taylor. TCC finished the 2018-19 season ranked third globally in Limitless's team rating system.
Now, four of those players--Justin Bokhari, Kulas, Jenkins, and Taylor--have joined a new article site under the direction of two-time Regional Champion Alex Wilson. The site, Team Rocket's Hideout, is based on a new model of paywall content for the community: rather than paying for a subscription to gain access to all articles for a set period of time, readers can simply pay for individual articles.
(The disbanding of TCC and the foundation of Team Rocket's Hideout are not correlated; Charlie Lockyer told PokéStats "it was just coincidental that they [were announced] on the same day.")
The Team Rocket's Hideout competitive team currently consists of:
Update: As a clarification, PokéStats is using "team" to refer to a testing group or close association of players, and not necessarily implying that every "team" has a financial partnership with a store or other company. Neither Team Rocket's Hideout nor NLF currently has such a financial partnership. -TW
As part of our ongoing effort to keep readers informed of developments in the world of competitive Pokémon TCG teams, PokéStats brings you some relevant updates from this past weekend. One highly-regarded North American team is shutting down, but many of its former members have found a home at an exciting new team and article site. On the other side of the world, some of the Oceania region's top players have formed a new team in an attempt to solidify that often-overlooked region's reputation on the international stage.
Now, four of those players--Justin Bokhari, Kulas, Jenkins, and Taylor--have joined a new article site under the direction of two-time Regional Champion Alex Wilson. The site, Team Rocket's Hideout, is based on a new model of paywall content for the community: rather than paying for a subscription to gain access to all articles for a set period of time, readers can simply pay for individual articles.
(The disbanding of TCC and the foundation of Team Rocket's Hideout are not correlated; Charlie Lockyer told PokéStats "it was just coincidental that they [were announced] on the same day.")
The Team Rocket's Hideout competitive team currently consists of:
- Justin Bokhari
- Isaiah Bradner
- Alex Espinosa
- Cody Graham
- Will Jenkins
- Justin Kulas
- Mike Morton Jr.
- Darin O'Meara
- Adam Reinhardt
- Emery Taylor
- Brent Tonisson
- Alex Wilson
Judge/TO and Virbank City moderator Will Post will also serve as a writer for the site. Team Rocket's Hideout can be found on Twitter @team_rocket_TCG.
Across the ocean, another new team has emerged: Never Lucky Fam, or NLF. The team features some of the Oceania region's top-performing players, with the current lineup as follows:
- James Cox
- Ying Hao Tou
- Christian Hasbani
- Jeremy Lim (PokéStats Oceania Correspondent)
- Jack Millar
- Corey Munro
- Naomi Murn
Jimmy Chen will serve as NLF's general manager.
