After a year full of incredible Pokémon competitions all over the world, the 2017 Championship Series season will culminate in Anaheim, CA, at the 2017 Pokémon World Championships. Players from all over the world will be battling in a three-day competition for more than $500,000 in prizes, including a $25,000 top prize in the Pokémon TCG events. It’s an invitation-only event, which means the competitors at the World Championships earned their chance to be crowned World Champion by performing well at tournaments throughout the season.

After the thrilling results from the North American International Championships, players had a pretty good idea of what decks to expect in the metagame. But that might change with the addition of a brand-new expansion: Sun & Moon—Burning Shadows. With over 140 new cards being added to the Standard format, something is bound to change. To help you follow along with our live stream on Twitch.tv/Pokemon, here are some of the strategies you might see at the upcoming Pokémon TCG World Championships.

Fresh off Tord Reklev’s big win at the North American International Championships, the Trashalanche deck with Garbodor will be on everyone’s radar heading into the World Championships. This deck, which also runs Drampa-GX and Tapu Lele-GX, is all about consistency and efficiency. The other Garbodor with the Garbotoxin Ability gives an added element of disruption, rounding out a deck that’s tough to beat—even without any major additions from the latest expansion.

Just when it looked like Decidueye-GX was falling out of the Standard format, it had two strong performances at Internationals from runner-up John Kettler and former World Champion Igor Costa. With the impending Standard format rotation and the latest update to the Expanded format banned list, some might see this as a last chance to use the Forest of Giant Plants Stadium card in competitive play. The version that runs Vileplume will welcome more useful versions of Oddish and Gloom, plus the debut of Acerola, but otherwise it hasn’t been updated very much. Others may move away from Vileplume toward a focus on Alolan Ninetales-GX, which can help cover a Weakness to Fire-type Pokémon.

Volcanion-EX decks have adapted and upgraded with each new expansion in the 2017 season, and now is no time to stop. The strategy remains mostly the same: use the Steam Up Ability to create massive attacks with your Fire-type Pokémon. Now, Kiawe joins the team, giving an opportunity to attach four Fire Energy in a single turn! Since playing this card ends your turn, it’s at its best on the first turn, before all the action starts. Ho-Oh-GX could also be a game changer, providing this deck with a hard hitter that doesn’t have a Weakness to Water-type Pokémon. Don’t be surprised if Volcanion bursts into the World Championships with a full head of steam.

One of the new cards that’s receiving a lot of attention is Gardevoir-GX, and it’s easy to see why. The Secret Spring Ability allows the player to attach an extra Fairy Energy each turn, which plays nicely into its Infinite Force attack. It also comes with the nifty Twilight-GX attack, which can shuffle a bunch of Item cards from your discard pile into your deck—particularly useful against Trashalanche. And since Kirlia can also evolve into Gallade, this deck gains access to a powerful Fighting-type attacker as well. It’s still unproven, but many players have Gardevoir-GX on their radar as a top contender heading into this event.

Zoroark BREAK was surrounded by a lot of hype during the North American International Championships, and Andrew Mahone was able to take it to the Top 8. Like some other decks on this list, Zoroark did not gain much from the Sun & Moon—Burning Shadows expansion—but it did get a new potential enemy in Gardevoir-GX, which sports a Resistance to the Darkness-type Pokémon. But its solid matchups against the other top decks keep it as a potential top choice for the World Championships.

Another new card that’s getting some attention is Golisopod-GX. As long as you can move it from the Bench to the Active spot every turn (such as with Guzma or Zoroark’s Stand In Ability), its First Impression attack will do 120 damage for a single Grass Energy—just enough to Knock Out Garbodor. With the help of Eevee’s Evolutions, it can gain the Fire, Water, or Lightning type as well, allowing it to hit many popular Pokémon for Weakness. When the time is right, attach a Choice Band and unleash the Crossing Cut-GX attack against an opposing Pokémon-GX or Pokémon­-EX to do 180 damage, again just enough to take out Drampa-GX and other top threats. We also could see Golisopod-GX alongside Decidueye-GX to form a powerful Grass-type group.

Darkrai-EX has been a contender in the Standard format for most of the season, but it dropped off a bit with the release of Sun & Moon—Guardians Rising. Now it gains the help of Darkrai-GX, which can pump up Darkrai-EX’s Dark Pulse attack by bringing extra Darkness Energy into play with the Restoration Ability. But will this new addition be enough to return Darkrai-EX to its former prominence? The answer might rest on the popularity of Gardevoir-GX, which matches up incredibly well against the Darkness-type Pokémon. That could make Darkrai a risky pick for the World Championships, but sometimes it pays off to take a big risk at the big event.

After a Top 8 finish at the North American International Championships by Alex Krekeler, it’s clear that Greninja BREAK is still a viable tournament choice. The Greninja deck is all about high risk, high reward. It’s slow to set up, it’s prone to poor starting hands with low-HP Pokémon, it has a lot of moving pieces that all need to be in place—and it has a lot of variance whether or not Talonflame is your starting Pokémon. But when everything goes well, there’s no questioning how powerful Greninja BREAK’s Giant Water Shuriken can be. All of this was on display at the 2016 Pokémon TCG World Championships, where we witnessed Cody Walinski easily dispatch legendary player Ross Cawthon in the semifinals, only to have his deck come up short against Shintaro Ito in the finals. Perhaps we’ll see more from Greninja this year.

Of course, with the Worlds field representing the best Pokémon TCG players from all corners of the globe, there could easily be a dark horse deck or two that disrupts the entire competition—after all, no one was expecting Mega Audino last year! It’ll be exciting to watch the competition unfold to see which players and decks rise to the top.

If you can’t attend in person, be sure to catch the live stream for all three days of coverage, August 18–20, at Twitch.tv/Pokemon. And as always, be sure to check back at Pokemon.co.uk/Strategy for the latest Pokémon TCG news and updates!