Leonardo Di Re

🇮🇹New TCG Player | Former VGC Player | WCS18 Competitor | 46th 2018 EUIC /73th 2019 EUIC / 13th place Stuttgart Regionals

[Leonardo Di Re @LelloVG]

Finally i menaged to earn my invite for the Worlds after a solid performace (13th 5-2) with an outdated team, lost the top8 against @tapu_kyriakou but i can still be satifacted. Also an huge shoutout to @GlumVGC that defeated me in swiss and gave me this wonderful LeleGX. 352/300

[Leonardo Di Re @LelloVG]

@PromanVGC Thank you so much for your support, Javi. I really hope I’ll be able to make it to Gdańsk, but I’m still not sure… That said, I’m sure things will work out, and I’ll be able to get back to enjoying what makes me happy

[Leonardo Di Re @LelloVG]

Gdańsk was going to be my first major since 2018.

I was genuinely excited. Excited to compete again, to see familiar faces, to feel that particular mix of nerves and anticipation that only this game seems to give me. But sometimes life interrupts the plans we make.

I was in a bad car accident. I’m alive, I’m physically okay, and, thank God, I came away with only a minor dislocation in my thumb. It still lets me type, so here I am.
I’m not writing this for attention or sympathy. I just need to put something into words that I’m still trying to understand myself.

When you care deeply about a game, your world can quietly shrink around it. Your biggest problem becomes optimizing a spread, preparing a matchup, finding those last few answers before a tournament.

I love that part of VGC. The care we put into it is real, and so are the friendships and the joy it brings us.
But an experience like this changes the scale of things.

Suddenly, getting home isn’t the uneventful ending to your day. It’s the part you’re most grateful for. Seeing someone you love, hearing their voice, feeling their arms around you… things so familiar that you sometimes forget to notice them, become everything.
I keep thinking about how fragile we are, and how easily we live as though we aren’t.

I know I was lucky. I can say “I’m okay” and mean it physically. Emotionally, though, I feel lost. There’s a deep uneasiness I haven’t quite found words for, and being grateful doesn’t make it disappear.

I don’t know yet whether I’ll go to Gdańsk or take some time for myself. I’m not going to make that decision while everything still feels so raw. For now, I’m allowing myself not to know.

This isn’t a revelation that games don’t matter. They do. This community matters to me. It’s a reminder, mostly to myself, that there is a life around the game that deserves our attention, too. Our health.

The people who love us. The ordinary privilege of coming home and being able to hold them.

I hope I’ll be back here soon talking about mons. This community has always been a place of friendship and lightness for me, and I want it to stay that way. Hopefully my next complaint will be about a double Heat Wave miss.

But today, I’m not there yet.

I’m sorry for the length, and for bringing something so heavy into a space where we usually come to switch off. I just felt the need to write this. Not because I have a lesson to teach anyone, but because I’m still trying to take it in myself.

I’m here. I get to go home. I get to hug the people I love.

Today, I’m trying to let that be enough

[Leonardo Di Re @LelloVG]

@IceBullet67 Io fortunatamente sto benone, almeno fisicamente parlando ecco. Grazie di cuore 🙏🏻

[Leonardo Di Re @LelloVG]

@KitWillerVGC Frase sentita molto spesso nelle ultime ore purtroppo

[Leonardo Di Re @LelloVG]

@GhostyInfinity Grazie di cuore ghosty. Un abbraccio anche a te

[Leonardo Di Re @LelloVG]

@notonoto_mby Congratulations on your result! I’ve been testing your team and really enjoying it. If it’s not too much trouble, would you be open to chatting via DM? I’d love to hear your thoughts on a couple of things!

[Leonardo Di Re @LelloVG]

@NotSoChamp Dipende dal punteggio dei tuoi oppo. Se vinci contro un 1480 non ti da gli stessi punti di un 1630

[Leonardo Di Re @LelloVG]

Day 1 of GC is over.
12-3, sitting at 55th.

Nothing crazy, but I’m pretty happy with how the run went. Now I just hope I don’t get cooked by that Scorbunny again.

[Leonardo Di Re @LelloVG]

@PaoloLivella Strano, è molto di nicchia

[Leonardo Di Re @LelloVG]

@poke_gto4 Yes. Helps with it as well

[Leonardo Di Re @LelloVG]

Yesterday I finished 2nd at the Bergamo League Challenge with a 6–2 record.

I’m playing Raichu Dengo because I’m a normie with no particular personality, but the team felt solid into pretty much everything.

Lost finals to Camerupt, which is basically a 5/6 autoloss under TR. No shame there.

Psyspam with Farigiraf, White Herb Close Combat Incineroar, and Kingambit covered every lead and adjustment I had left; which is fair, considering I’d decided that driving 40 km to play an 8:30 PM Challenge after being awake since 5 AM was a sensible use of my evening.

[Leonardo Di Re @LelloVG]

Difficilmente impedirai che la piazzino. Con i redirect+fake out loro non hai abbastanza output. Solitamente mi trovo bene cercando di stallarla evitando di regalare free switch, poi chiaramente dipende molto da chi la sfrutta e da che coverage ha.

Contro camerupt è estremamente complessa perché non hai switch in safe e mette subito molta pressione. Nel caso suo cerco di preservare mega mence quanto piu possibile e cercare di arrivare in una situazione in cui a fine tr ho pressione tale da impedirgli di settarla nuovamente. Fuori Tr il cammello è molto gestibile.

Se invece gioca golisopod dipende molto da che set giocano. Se hanno drill Run come nel caso del rain di Baltimora bisogna gestire golisopod con gholdengo gestendo bene gli switch in di mence (grazie al seme riesci a stargli davanti abbastanza bene).

Se hanno sucker punch + spade tendenzialmente cerco la pressione più immediata prima dei stetup e poi gestisco passivamente fino alla fine della tr.

[Leonardo Di Re @LelloVG]

@Enrijai1 Grazie bello mio

[Leonardo Di Re @LelloVG]

My last official match was back at VGC 19 Moon Series. Seven years later, and two weeks after getting back into the game (there were Pokémon I didn’t even know 😭), I finally played a tournament again.

A few rng events in Swiss but I made it to top 8, where I lost a mirror match, fair and square. Still happy about it.
Balance proved to be a solid pick, though with hindsight there are things I’d have played differently.

The mirror came down to three things: his faster Incineroar with throat chop that wrecked my intimidate/fake out cycling, SD on sneasler giving him free value every setup turn, and his special mence outspeeding mine with a dragon move — without mence to check it, sneasler ran through the rest of my team.

[Leonardo Di Re @LelloVG]

@ZanganiFed3403 Event locator

[Leonardo Di Re @LelloVG]

@SanvyVGC Mi hai ghostato bastardo

[Garry Kasparov @Kasparov63]

If you are worried that the game of chess is racist, please take up Go, where black moves first, instead of looking foolish by wasting taxpayer money at a state broadcaster to "investigate" it! https://t.co/DPjvvWbqcb

[Leonardo Di Re @LelloVG]

@YureeVGC Touhou 8: https://t.co/GeWg3ZnXFw
Farcry 5: https://t.co/txevyfQV4F