The top six One Piece Trading Card Game players met each other once more finally determine who would represent the Philippines in the upcoming Area Finals of the Championship 2023. The six players comprised the top three of the 1v1 Preliminaries and the Champion team of the 3v3 Preliminaries. As the dust settled, Irwin Arogo and his Zoro deck claimed victory.

Irwin Arogo staged a massive upset in the tournament defeating two of the PH representatives, his teammates in the 3v3, Abiel Alejandro and Zaldy Belarmino.

The six players played a Swiss format during the Finals, and the top 2 of the bracket moved on to the grand finals. Zaldy Belarmino topped the bracket with an undefeated run, while Irwin entered the finals for a chance of revenge against Zaldy.

In the grand finals, the game started in a typical fashion. Zoro and Law built their boards with low-cost characters and exchanged attacks with their leaders. Irwin pulled ahead of Zaldy when he scored multiple searchers that let him refill his hand with the cards he wanted and flood the board with characters. Things turned sour quickly for Zaldy as he revealed that he didn’t have any significant threats he could put on the board when he used Law’s ability and returned Nami only to put it back on the board.

Irwin took out the newly dropped Law of Zaldy in a pivotal turn, thanks to the Gordon-Marco combo. Zaldy recovered very well and managed to take down Irwin’s board. He also managed to cut the life lead of Iriwn but Irwin managed to clear up the board. In the final turn, a Gordon-Firefist combo broke down the wall of Laws and opened Zaldy to a final 8 K-powered attack by Irwin.

The road has not ended for Zaldy, however. Irwin decided to step down as the country’s representative, so Zaldy will be the one to represent our country in the Area Finals of the Championship 2023.

I want to thank my family for always supporting me in what i do. Thank you to Sir Don and Gamers Shop for hosting the event and providing us a comfortable venue. Most of all, to Abiel, Zaldy, and the rest of our team for helping me achieve this win through countless practice, and dedication to the game. It just shows that hard work really pays off Since I’ve already decided to pass down the invite for the Asia Final, lets all cheer for Rizaldy and hope for the best I know he can do it! – Irwin Arogo