Interview: Pokémon TCG Caster Ross Gilbert Talks Casting and Collecting

Date: October 20, 2025
Original Source: https://www.pokemon.com/us/pokemon-news/interview-pokemon-tcg-caster-ross-gilbert-talks-casting-and-collecting
Learn more about the person behind the cast.

This year at the 2025 Pokémon World Championships in Anaheim, California, a wealth of collectors, competitors, cosplayers, and Pokémon fans from all over the world filled the halls. And content creators that go above and beyond in their love for Pokémon, and who the community loves in turn, were there to capture it all! We at Pokemon.com had the opportunity to chat with one of those content creators—who also happens to be a professional Pokémon Trading Card Game caster—Ross Gilbert, affectionately known by the community at large as PTCGRadio on YouTube.

What is it like casting the Pokémon TCG? What are you looking for while presenting the game on stream?
Oh, I can talk about this for hours. One of the most important things to remember about casting is it’s not necessarily for the hardcore players. It sounds a bit wrong, but a lot of the really, really, top players will watch it with sound off and will know what’s going on. The primary goal of casting, which I think an awful lot of people watching at home miss, is it needs to be accessible. The most important thing is: can people with the most basic understanding of the rules of the game follow what's going on? That is your number one goal.

After you've got that down, then it's going into the strategies, trying to see what they're doing, how they're setting it up, and the analysis. And you know, really explaining why everything is happening. I mean, when you and your [casting] partner cast a really good game, the ultimate goal is that a casual player watching it is going to understand what happened and an experienced player is going to learn something from watching it.

I saw a tweet a little while ago from somebody—a very experienced player, a very good player—and it was basically, “Oh, the casters don't need to tell us what Comfey does. We all know what Flower Selecting does." And the response to that is well, no, they don’t. There's plenty of people watching [for] whom this is the first event they've ever seen, and they do need to be explained to why Flower Selecting is so important and how it works.

Totally. You mentioned Flower Selecting, which brings up something really interesting: Pokémon TCG players like to take a lot of physical shortcuts on stream to speed up plays. How do you keep up with that pace as a caster?
Oh, yeah, they do. I’m very lucky that I've been doing this for a long time now, so there is a fair amount of muscle memory in commentary. When it's something like Flower Selecting, a lot of the time, you know, if it's a really quick decision, you have to explain it quickly. And in the back of your mind, you know there's more Comfey in play and there's going to be more Flower Selecting so you can explain this more later if you need to.

One of the things I picked up from Shai Burton, a phenomenal caster, the guy I cast Worlds with last year in Hawaii, developed this thing where during the player’s first search—which usually takes a few minutes—[he] explains the basics of the deck that they're playing. If you’re talking about a Lost Box deck, you can explain that the deck is all built around the Lost Zone, they're going to be using Flower Selecting with Comfey, and set up that understanding in advance.

Sometimes it’s impossible, though, and this one time made me really, really sad. I was casting with Alex Dao, another lovely guy and great caster. It was the [2025 Pokémon TCG EUIC Masters Finals] last year. It was Ryuki Okada and Natalie Millar, I believe. And game two was phenomenal.

Natalie was playing Dragapult ex, so she's dropping damage counters around the board, and she set up this turn where she took four or five Prize cards in one turn. It was this brilliant turn using the Dusclops line to take KOs and then taking multiple KOs with Dragapult ex. And what really made me sad was, because Natalie and Ryuki are both just super top-level players, when Natalie was in position for the big turn, they both didn't actually play out the turn, which is really unsatisfying for people watching. But more than that, it really did a disservice to Natalie, who had played this ridiculous game.

It was really hard as casters to explain quite how well she played. I don't know if there's a way we can inform the community, but I'd love it if the top players could go, “Let's just play it out for the people at home." Of course, there is a downside to that, and that is time allotted for a best-of-three match. It seems like a full collaboration between everyone involved is necessary to make it possible.

You’re so passionate about Pokémon, where did it all start?
A good friend called Steve, a lovely [friend], came down to live in Cornwall where I’m from. And when I was in secondary school, Steve started telling me about this Pokémon game that was coming out. When did Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue come out?

They were released in the United States in 1998.
I was 13 or 14 years old then, and I’ve got friends at school. Steve actually imported it because it was back when games came out in the US quite a bit before they came out in the UK. He was telling me, “Dude, this game, you’ve gotta look into this game.” I actually got it—I shan’t name the shop for a few reasons—I got Pokémon Blue two days before the street date from a local shop. I still remember jumping around in a park with my friend Jamie. I got Pokémon Blue, he got Pokémon Red, and we were so hyped that it was finally here.

How about the Pokémon TCG?
I was also there buying Base Set when Base Set first came out, so I have a very vivid memory of pulling a Charizard from a booster pack when Base Set was new in shops, from a local shop down in Cornwall. I dropped off for a few years, but I kind of came back toward the end of the Pokémon Diamond and Pokémon Pearl era. I probably started getting into the TCG when Platinum—Arceus came out, so that prerelease was the first one I ever attended. That was the moment when I really got back into it, and I was never getting out of it again.

Yeah, that expansion was particularly fun. One of those expansions that I've always wanted to complete that I haven't. I’m still missing quite a few of the Arceus cards to this day. The funniest thing about that prerelease was, I think there were three different Arceus LV. X in the expansion, so everyone was just pulling an Arceus LV. X alongside the other Arceus cards.

That Arceus deck was really fun because I remember when the rotation hit, everybody thought it was going to be Platinum—Arceus onwards. Everyone had basically been doing the testing—and the Arceus deck never truly worked—but if the rotation was what people predicted, everyone was convinced the Arceus deck was about to be fully top-tier. And then the format rotated just a few expansions afterward. We missed the format where the Arceus deck was kind of going to be good, and it just never did anything.

Yeah, there are a lot of decks that never quite get the pieces. I remember this Vikavolt deck that ended up performing much better in Japan because the Vikavolt from Sword & Shield—Fusion Strike and the Charjabug from Sun & Moon—Unbroken Bonds could be played in the same Standard format. It was a legitimate threat in that specific format because it was sort of a counter to the Arceus & Dialga & Palkia—GX card but never elsewhere due to how the rotation shook out.
That Charjabug was really fun, man. And ADP* is already getting forgotten man! That deck never had a World Championship. It was never legal for Worlds.

Editor’s Note: “ADP” stands for Arceus & Dialga & Palkia-GX, a popular Tag Team Pokémon GX during the Sun & Moon and Sword & Shield eras of the Pokémon TCG.

Yeah, it came out in late 2019!
And Worlds never happened in 2020 or 2021, so a lot of the younger players completely forgot about ADP because there’s no history to go back to like there are for some other decks. There were so many single-Prize decks that could beat every other deck but couldn’t beat ADP because it took two Prize cards against their attackers. They just couldn’t win.

We’ve talked a bit about casting and how you became a fan, but what kind of collector are you?
I’m mostly a Japanese card collector. Part of it is because I’m learning the language, and it’s nice because my original impetus to start learning was translating cards. Cards are revealed in Japanese before English, and I have friends who read Japanese and who do the translations. I was getting really annoyed having to wait for them to do the translations, and then I'd be sending them questions like, “Is it definitely Basic Energy or could it be any Energy? Is it only the Active Pokémon or could it also be the Benched Pokémon?” You know, these simple questions. And I kind of got embarrassed enough in the end.

I got a lovely friend Antoine, who's very well known in the community for doing translations, and they were really the person that pushed me to do it. So, initially, my goal was, “I'm just going to learn to translate Pokémon cards, because I need to be able to do this for myself and except for the very rare, super awkward cards, I do all my translations myself. So now when the cards are revealed, I can translate it, I can make a video, and I'm not relying on anyone.

But also, I really like the configuration of Japanese booster boxes. There are roughly 60 cards in a set, you buy a box, and you get four different Pokémon ex out of six, and you get three of the 12 illustration rares. So, you can buy two boxes, and a lot of the time, you'll get every card, and you'll be missing somewhere between six and eight illustration rares.

It just makes it a lot easier for the collection that I want, because what I really want is one of every card. You have commons, uncommons, rares, illustration rares, etc. I would love to collect special illustration rares, but the reality is if it’s between having everything from common to rare and just special illustration rares, I would rather have a larger collection than really try to focus in on them.

Do you have a favorite card in your collection?
Donphan Prime. I’ve long said that it’s my favorite card ever released. I topped Nationals with it around 2011, and this is when Donphan Prime wasn’t good. No one rated it, so I must have been the only one in the room playing the deck. I was certainly the only one having any success. There are two decks I've made where I firmly believe I had the best list. And I firmly believe I had the best. Donphan Prime could not beat Gyarados and it was awkward against straight Dialga G LV.X/Garchomp C LV.X. Luxray LV.X with Dialga G LV.X was fine, but if they went full Dialga G LV.X/Garchomp C LV.X, it was an awkward matchup.

Outside of that, it beat everything. It was so much fun. But what a lot of people don't know, and—it's where I'm gonna get nerdy with you. In Japan, only in HeartGold & SoulSilver, not any other sets, they had mirror foil Prime cards and a friend of mine got me the mirror foil Donphan Prime. It’s the weirdest version of my favorite card. Most people are completely unaware that for that one set, there was actually, well, what most people would call “reverse holo” Primes. Most people don't know they exist.

We appreciate Ross Gilbert for taking the time to chat with us at Worlds this year! Look forward to more special interviews with Pokémon content creators, Trainers.

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