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If you spent any time at the 2026 Pokémon Melbourne Regional Championships this past weekend (May 23–24), you might have spotted some familiar faces from the Gold Coast pulling off some seriously impressive runs. Three players who regularly play out of our store finished the weekend with hardware to show for it, including two divisional Champions and a Top 4.
Oh, and two of those Champions? Brothers.
A Massive Weekend in Melbourne
Melbourne Regionals is one of the most stacked events on the Oceania circuit. With nearly 1,000 Masters TCG players alone descending on the venue (plus full Seniors and Juniors brackets, VGC, and Pokémon GO all running alongside), even making top cut at this event is no small feat. Winning your division? Even rarer.
That's exactly what two of them did.
Drake Z: Seniors TCG Champion
Drake Z, who we're proud to have as a sponsored player, went into Melbourne with high expectations on his shoulders and delivered in style. After grinding through a long Day 1 swiss, Drake stormed through the Seniors Day 2 cut and took out the entire Seniors TCG division to lift the Champion trophy.
This is a huge result for the Gold Coast scene as a whole. Drake has been grinding the competitive circuit for several seasons now, and seeing all that prep, testing, and consistency pay off on the biggest local stage of the year has been something else. His decklist is below, and it's well worth a study if you want to see exactly what carried him to the top of the bracket.
Massive congratulations, Drake. Champion status well and truly earned.
Damon Z: Juniors VG Champion
Then there's Damon, Drake's younger brother, who decided that one trophy in the family clearly wasn't enough. Damon plays the Video Game side of competitive Pokémon, and he marched through the Juniors VG division to win his age category outright.
Two siblings, two different formats (TCG and VG), same weekend, two Champion trophies. That's the kind of weekend most families only daydream about, and we're stoked we got to watch it happen in real time.
If you've ever been part of a competitive Pokémon household, you'll know how the late-night testing sessions, the road trips, and the deck talk over breakfast all stack up. Watching it pay off for both Drake and Damon at the same event is genuinely special.
Kingsley C: Seniors TCG Top 4
Rounding out a brilliant weekend for the Gold Coast contingent, local player Kingsley C put together a phenomenal run of his own, finishing Top 4 in Seniors TCG.
For those keeping score, that means two of the four Seniors TCG semifinalists at Melbourne Regionals came out of the Gold Coast. That's not a coincidence. It's the result of a group of players pushing each other to get better every single week, and Kingsley has been right in the thick of that culture. Top 4 at an event of this size is a result he should be proud of for a long time.
Congrats, Kingsley. You repped the Coast in a big way.
The Decklists
For the deck nerds (and we know there are plenty of you), we've included the decklist images for Drake and Kingsley below. Have a flick through, study the choices, spot the deviations from the standard meta calls, and take some notes for your next event. Both lists have a lot to teach about preparing for a field of this size.
Drake Z: Seniors TCG Champion
Kingsley C: Seniors TCG Top 4
What This Means for the Local Scene
Results like this don't happen in a vacuum. They happen because of the weekly locals, the casual testing sessions, the long discussions over format calls, and the players willing to grind it out together. The Gold Coast Pokémon community has been quietly building toward weekends like this for a while, and it's been awesome to watch that energy carry onto the regional stage.
Want to be part of it? We run regular in-store Pokémon events across both TCG and VGC throughout the week, from casual leagues right through to competitive prep nights. Whether you're brand new to the game or already eyeing your next Regionals, there's a seat at the table. Check out our full schedule on the in-store events calendar and come say hi.
To Drake, Damon, and Kingsley: huge congrats from everyone here at the store. Now go get some rest. The road to Worlds is long, and the season's only getting started.
