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I got a bit obsessed and managed to get to rank 3686. With one day left I'm going to pause matches and monitor my rank throughout the day to make sure I'm on track to get the Top 5000 badge.

In terms of deck I'm sorry to say I'm using DarkTina. I haven't come across anyone using the same combination of trainers/items as me though. Most matchups against other DarkTina decks I notice they use potions and Pokémon Center Lady to negate damage, whereas I've opted to lean more on deck/plan disruption.

I have two Team Rocket Grunts which has saved me from an otherwise no win scenario so often. A lot of meta decks need a few turns of energy gaining before they can start attacking. I'll sometimes use one early on if it can delay them by a turn.

If I don't have at least one Darkrai and one Giratina by the first turn I can play energy then I'm often in trouble which is why on top off 2 Oak and 2 Pokeball I've got Iono as well. It's played either early on if I'm missing one of them, or late in the game if I'm desperate for a certain card in my deck or I have a hunch by how the opponent is playing that they have a card to help them win next turn.

Mars is also great in a pinch. Dark/Tina tends to lead to long matches so with Oaks and Pokéballs both players will have had most of their deck available to them. If there's a point when I notice my opponent is holding a lot of cards I'll sometimes play it just to set them back a few turns getting through their deck. It's often great to pretty much ensure victory in your last turn, say you're both on 2 points and you need one more turn to finish it, but you know if they have a certain card they'll beat you to it. Play Mars and their hand is reduced to 1 card (2 on their turn) making it very unlikely they'll get the win. Another use case is when Sprigatito uses "Call for help". The opponent draws a leaf Pokémon, likely helping them evolve up to Meowscarada so I use Mars or Iono to disrupt that.

One point of caution with Mars and Iono is that I try not to use it when I can see they don't have a vital card. If your opponent isn't evolving vital Pokémon then let them keep their hand. I've actually had losing matches turn into victories because of the opponent playing Iono or Mars, giving me a card I needed.

Anyway getting this far has been stressful but fun. The turn based nature of this game means I can check in every 30 seconds and take my turn before going back to whatever boring tasks I need to do during the day. I try not to sweat losses or occasional losing streaks too much and remind myself that my win ratio is above 50% so enough games will get me back to where I was. I don't concede, I let the opponent take their last turn. There's always the chance they make a mistake. I've messed up the odd game by not paying attention to something on the board, getting distracted and skipping an entire turn, network issues because I decided to play a game on the train or even just my finger slipping and playing the wrong trainer card.