Andrew Valren

Bio: I was introduced to Pokémon TCG back at the beginning of the EX series by my cousins, who were and still are good friends of Keaton Gill, one of the best players in Senior Division in the world at the time. I never got to play competitively back then, and once Keaton stopped playing (right after the release of EX Dragon Frontiers), so did my cousins and so did I; but my little brothers kept buying cards and were persistent, not wanting to stop playing. One day, I was looking at one of the “rulebooks” that came with a WC deck that they bought at the store that day (I believe it was David Cohen’s Stallgon deck), I saw that the World Championships that year was in Hawaii. I did some research and found out that the National Tournament was in Indianapolis that year, which is about an hour from my home. I decided that I would try to get back into the game, build a deck, and go to Nationals. After going 4-5 in the Senior Division, I decided that I was going to do better research this year and make some better decks. Since then, I am currently ranked 15th in Indiana in the Masters Division and 888 in the world.