After some encouragement from friends, I've decided to post my own story about a time when I believe Igor Costa attempted to cheat against me.

The following happened at Seattle Regionals 2017. Igor and I were playing Drampa/Garb mirror, and he had already won the first game. We were getting close to time as game two was wrapping up, so if I were to win we'd tie the match. On what ended up being the last turn of the game, Igor needed to hit a pretty big combo in order to win, including a Field Blower to get more items in my discard and a Lysandre for Tapu Lele-GX (he would have to take the KO with Garbodor GRI). As he plays his turn, it becomes obvious that he doesn't have the Field Blower necessary for the Lele KO. He does have Lysandre, however.

Towards the end of his turn, Igor announces Lysandre and points to a benched Trubbish of mine with the Lysandre in his hand (I was guessing this move was to stall as I would need a way to retreat in order to win). I move the Trubbish to the active position, but Igor doesn't do anything. He still has the Lysandre in his hand, and just pauses for a bit (maybe 20 to 30 seconds, quite long in terms of in-game time). After the pause, he quickly says, 'No, I meant Lele for game.' I respond that he doesn't have the KO on the Lele and start taking out the items in my discard pile to confirm, but instead of checking my discard to see if I was correct, Igor immediately scoops up his cards.

In my opinion he was attempting to create some confusion with the long pause/changing the Lysandre target, and also attempting to rush me by saying, 'I meant Lele for game.' (i.e., he thought maybe I wouldn't know how many items were in my discard and banked on me scooping up my cards. It was really his only out.) Additionally, I believe that him scooping up his cards immediately without checking my discard to see that he didn't have the KO points to him already knowing that he didn't have the KO. I didn't think about it in the moment of, as I was pretty happy to have tied one of the best players in the game, but it is astounding that one of the best wouldn't already know how many item cards were in my discard when the foundation for one of the deck's primary attackers revolves around that exact count.

Obviously I have no proof of this and that's a big reason for why I haven't said anything about it earlier. I did tell other friends about the incident immediately after it happened though, since once I got away from the table and was able to think deeper about what had happened, I realized how fishy his behavior had been. I don't really expect anyone to believe me, but I did wanna share my story in case it changes anyone's mind.