Next weekend we’ll see the North American broadcast debut of the new animated series, Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s. But make no mistake — as “big name” duelist after “big name” duelist arrives here at the first Shonen Jump Championship of the format, one fact grows clearer and clearer.

The 5D’s era begins today, right here in Baltimore!

Heading into this event it was still unclear whether top duelists were ready to adopt Synchro monsters. For months now, we’ve seen the world’s greatest competitors cling to Gladiator Beasts, and with The Duelist Genesis only strengthening the uber-popular top deck (and nothing on the new Advanced list hurting it) it seemed quite likely that the trend-setters and trophy-winners might just toss a few copies of Gladiator Beast War Chariot into their decks and move on. For some duelists in attendance today, like Michael Kohanim and Hugo Adame, that’s certainly the case: Comic Odyssey is the one team here today still flying the Gladiator flag, though their build isn’t what you might expect. For the rest of the field, white is the new black.

Dark Armed Dragon variants built around Emergency Teleport are leading the pack, piloted here today by players like Adam Corn, Cesar Gonzalez, Lazaro Bellido, Jerry Wang, Paul Levitin, and many more. But the number of innovative builds is surprising. Shonen Jump Champion Paul Lyn is running a Teleport variant reminiscent of Japan’s “Vision Gun Blue” deck, packing Destiny Hero – Plasma, Phantom Skyblaster, and a wealth of Psychic Tuners. Jason Holloway is not normally reputed as a strategic innovator, but today he’s running a daring Zombie Synchro deck with Giant Rat and Green Baboon, Defender of the Forest. Jerome McHale is playing a bizarre strategy he’s been testing for weeks: dubbed “Synchro Dude,” it mixes Junk Synchron with Grave Squirmer and a huge spell line-up, taking advantage of three Destiny Hero – Diamond Dude. Those are just three of the more exciting Synchro builds in contention this morning.

Other cool deck picks that I’ve seen great builds of today include Six Samurai, Valhalla (I was shocked), and a promising Lightsworn deck piloted by none other than Matt Peddle. Today is going to be a huge day for dueling, and the format is way more open than I expected. It’s going to be a lot of fun.

There’s still some time left before the tournament begins, and we’re going to open up with a look at some of the coolest decks being played here today. Some will make it and some won’t — only time will tell.

Welcome to what promises to be one of the most shocking, exciting, and surprising events of the year. Welcome to Shonen Jump Championship Baltimore!