I wanted to write this last year but I unfortunately whiffed my invite by 3 points, a cruel punishment for not finishing out my League Challenges BFL.

As the regular season is about to end and I’m sitting on a comfortable 835 points, I thought it would be interesting to see how much I had to spend to get here. I think that I can offer a unique perspective as both a Canadian and someone who only competes for fun. This means two things:

Flights are expensive
I only travel when it is convenient

Unfortunately for me, the west coast sees fewer Regionals per year compared to the east and, for some reason, my maple-scented, laminated dollary-doos have less purchase power than some crinkly pieces of US paper. This means I have to fly to almost every major I attend and spend more money.

It should go without saying but, all prices you will see written out are in CAD. If you want to convert to USD or Euro just multiply by 0.75 or 0.60 respectively.

The Season Recap

For this season (as of the time of writing) I played in:

5 League Challenges
9 League Cups
4 Regional Championships
1 International Championship

19 total events (and 2 pre-releases).

Let’s start with local events.

Locals

The total cost of playing in four Challenges was $55+tax. The ones local to me usually charge $10 but I played in a Challenge out in Niagara before Toronto Regionals that has $15 entry (which comes with a free cake pop and drink so it was worth it).

With a win rate of 81%, my finishes were: 1st, 2nd x3, 5th. This gives an uncapped total of 59 points and a capped total of 51 points.

In addition to points I received $95 in store credit, 22 prize packs, and 4 booster packs.

	Costs	Points (Capped)	Profits
League Challenge	$55 + tax	51	$95 22 Prize Packs 4 Booster Packs

The total cost of nine League Cups was $190+tax. Seven of them cost $20 and the other two cost $25.

With a win rate of 65%, my finishes were: 2nd x2, Top 4 x2, Top 8 x2, and three flops. This gives an uncapped total of 194 points and a capped total of 144 points.

In addition to points I received $181 in store credit, 35 Prize Packs, a booster bundle, and a 3-pack blister. I will say, the Booster Bundle was White Flare and had the Secret Rare Reshiram so that paid for all my local tournaments entry cost four times over.

	Costs	Points (Capped)	Profits
League Cup	$190 + tax	144	$181 35 Prize Packs Booster Bundle 3-Pack Blister

Had to thank the tournament organizer for handing me the stacked prizes.

Majors

Now, for majors I will add a summary table and discuss my strategy when booking flights and hotels. All prices are after splits with friends and rounded to the nearest $5 to make it easier to add.

	Costs	Points	Profits
Las Vegas	Flight: $280 Hotel: $350 Entry: $105 Total: $735	40	9 Booster Packs
Toronto	Flight: $335 Hotel: $300 Entry: $105 Total: $740	60	18 Booster Packs
EUIC London	Flight: $750 Hotel: $650 Entry: $160 Total: $1560	140	1 Booster Box
Seattle	Flight: $0 (drove) Hotel: $140 Entry: $105 Total: $245	120	1 Booster Box
Queretaro	Flight: $760 Hotel: $145 Entry: $105 Total: $1010	280	3 Booster Boxes (ESP) $3k USD

Booking Flights

For domestic (US & Canada) flights I abide by the six week rule: Flight prices tend to be as low as they will get six weeks before the fly date. After this window, they are rarely going down. As a consequence, I always decide whether to go on a trip at least two months before the date and I will add a flight price tracker to try and catch any dip from a deal when it happens.

For international flights, I would extend this to at least 8 weeks, maybe 10. Those are A LOT more expensive out of Vancouver so I don’t do it very often.

For flight comparisons, I use Expedia for bookings. It has all the major airlines out of Vancouver but will miss some budget American airlines if there is a connection somewhere. I like it because it is very simple to use, is upfront about cost after taxes, and passively awards you points for small discounts.

For some flights, it saves a lot of money if you can fly out of Seattle (just a 3.5 hour drive from Vancouver) so I will sometimes check the flight prices from there. This was how I got Las Vegas flights for cheap. Every other flight I took was out of YVR, specifically with WestJet.

The only reason that I fly WestJet is because my bank has a credit card deal with them that gives me a free checked bag on every flight per passenger on my booking. When I go on a trip that this is a benefit, I can count it as a ~$100 discount when comparing to other airlines.

If you’ve booked flights from YVR out to these Regionals you may also think that the flight prices look a bit lower than usual. This is also because of that credit card deal. I use the card exclusively on booking these flights which gets me bonus points back that I can use for discounts on these flights. It essentially becomes about a 15% discount every time.

For reference I was able to get a $270 discount on flights to Toronto (I booked for myself and my fiancé), a $180 discount on flights to Puerto Vallarta (en route to Queretaro) and $140 discount on flights to San Francisco for Worlds. All from using this card for purchasing these flights and hotels.

Booking Hotels

For hotels, I have two main checks: Expedia and Marriott Bonvoy. I have member discounts at all Marriott hotels because my mom works at one.

Now, Marriott hotels are typically on the higher end of pricing so sometimes the discount doesn’t make much of a difference. However, sometimes it is HUGE. So I always check to see if this is an option and about 60% of the time it works. Where it falls short is for larger rooms or for booking multiple rooms if we plan on traveling as a big group.

Big groups almost always results in lower costs, so it is much more economical. I like using Expedia for this because it casts a very wide net when looking at all the various hotel options and also the whole thing about passive discounts I mentioned before.

I will mention briefly that if you do use Expedia, watch out for the VRBO listings. That was the one time that I got scammed this year (in London for EUIC) where the booking said it can accommodate 5 but when we pulled up they clarified that we could only have 3 adults (and the space was definitely big enough).

Summary

Here is a clean table to summarize the total costs.

	Entry Fee	Flight	Hotel	Total
Locals	$245			$245
Las Vegas	$105	$280	$350	$735
Toronto	$105	$335	$300	$740
EUIC London	$160	$750	$650	$1560
Seattle	$105	$0	$140	$245
Queretaro	$105	$760	$145	$1010
Total	$825	$2125	$1585	$4535

And for return, this summarizes prizing

	Cash	Packs
Locals	$276 (store credit)	57 prize packs
Las Vegas	$0	9 Packs
Toronto	$0	18 Packs
EUIC London	$0	1 Booster Box
Seattle	$0	1 Booster Box
Queretaro	$2,773 after tax	3 Booster Boxes
Total	$3,049	5 Booster Boxes, a bunch of packs

I was very fortunate that the cost of my season was made up by spiking one top eight finish. I’m hoping that between the profits from selling booster boxes and filing a claim back for the withheld tax (+another $900USD) will bring me pretty close to breaking even on the season.

The Deck Breakdown

For deck used, the breakdown is quite funny. At the start of the season I didn’t take it very seriously. I saw the schedule for Regionals in North America and knew that I couldn’t really make a push until Q3. Thus, I ended up trying to build a Pidgeot Control deck, lost in top 8 of a cup to Grimmsnarl, so I built Slaking for Vegas Regionals.

By the time that Toronto Regionals came around, my friend Jack was fully in on Gardevoir so I decided to pick up the deck as well. I pretty much didn’t play anything else and after EUIC, I stopped changing the list entirely as well, despite there being two more set releases between then and my final major in Queretaro. I just knew that my list was really strong, so why try and change things?

This makes Gardevoir (or as I call the deck, gex) my MVP by far with Pult/Noir coming in 2nd and Slaking in 3rd for its performance in Vegas.

Shoutout to the gex 60, definitely earned a spot in my hall of fame binder.

The Cost of a Worlds invite (2026)