This regional is part of the 2025-2026 season, and is therefore being referred to as the 2026 Milwaukee Regionals (despite being held in October 2025). If you’re looking for information on the previous season’s Milwaukee Regionals held in May 2025, read this article.
Friday
As usual, I took the bus from the UW-Madison campus stop to
Milwaukee’s intermodal station downtown. After dropping some things off at my
hotel, I went over to the Baird Center to check in and play in side events for
the afternoon. Unlike the previous Milwaukee Regionals in May, for this event
they had us in the D and E halls on the third floor and as such we had to enter
via the north entrance.
I registered for the Hard difficulty of the Pokémon Go
Scavenger Hunt, then signed up for the Pokémon Puzzle League tournament. I wish
I could tell you I did exceptionally well, but the reality is that I went 1-2,
thanks to the skilled competition at the 8-person event. Granted, the typical
issues of input lag and worn controllers meant that there were cases where some
of my losses didn’t feel like they were my fault, but other participants had to
deal with similar issues.
My second event for the afternoon was a TCG Raid. This went
relatively smoothly (with far less waiting than what I experienced at Worlds in
August), and as usual we were able to defeat the boss relatively easily. Events
closed shortly after the raid concluded, so I headed back to the hotel and
ordered a meal from the middle eastern restaurant Scheherazade.
Saturday
After donning the latest version of my “Ringo Starr as a
Pokémon Trainer” costume (now with a Confined Hoopa plush), I headed over to
participate in the Build-and-Battle. This used the “Destined Rivals” set (not
to be confused with the anime season “Rival Destinies” from the 2010s), and I
was dealt a combination of Misty’s and Team Rocket’s Pokémon. Misty’s Gyarados
relies heavily on discarding her Pokémon from the top of the deck, so it seemed
like a better idea to go with Team Rocket’s Tyranitar, especially since I
literally got zero of Misty’s Pokémon in my packs. Using this setup, I was able
to pull of an impressive 3-0 run.
After another TCG Raid, I decided to attempt an 8-person
Ditto tournament. This was run using a single pack of cards to build a 20-card
deck. Ironically, I did get a Misty’s Magikarp in the pack, which I had no
intention of using, instead choosing Team Rocket’s Houndour and Grimer as my
basics, and supplementing them with an assortment of Stage 1 cards, and a Stage
2 Annihilape. I was once again able to go 3-0 on this, using that Annihilape in
the finals to clinch the win in the finals.
After this point, side events closed for the evening, so I
ordered a Mexican omelet from the Omega
Family Restaurant and watched the pivotal baseball game (as if there wasn’t
enough happening in Milwaukee already this weekend).
Sunday
Having changed into my “Michael Hutchence as a Pokémon
Trainer” cosplay (now with Rock Star Pikachu plush), I went to the center and
waited for the start of the noon Chaos Cup event. In addition to having
pre-made teams (one of which I had to re-enter because it mysteriously dropped
off my list between rounds two and three), the judge would assign arbitrary
additional rules to groups of players each round. Despite having lesser skills
at the VGC than TCG, I was able to finish 2-1.
After turning in my Go Scavenger Hunt results, I
participated in the afternoon’s TCG pocket event. I brought in my usual
Greninja/Articuno EX and Serperior/Celebi EX decks, but only managed to attain
a record of 1-2, and then only by virtue of getting a bye in the second round (which
at least that gave me some time to take advantage of the Solosis Community Day
in Go). I obviously have some work to do, and probably need to explore some new
deck ideas.
Other Observations:
-If Gaming Generations wants to continue to hold retro
gaming competitions, it really would be nice if they could upgrade their N64
and GameCube setups to improve the experience. The SNES/N64/GameCube combo
adapters may be fine for Stadium and other turn-based games, but for Puzzle
League/Challenge and Pinball, faster response times are needed. Games using the
Game Boy Player were particularly laggy and difficult. Products like the Rad2x and adapters
that use the GameCube digital port (allowing 480p on that system) are available
for under $100. If they’re willing/allowed to mod the N64, it seems like
there’s a new
low-cost mod out there.
-In terms of time taken, there seemed to be far fewer delays at this event than
there were at the May regional. I can’t speak personally as to whether they
brought in more staff or had fewer attendees, but things ran much better from a
time and organizational standpoint.
