Around the tournament venue today there are a great many flags. Some of them are being carried around simply to fulfill a sense of national pride. Others, though, have been awarded for bigger achievements. Every national champion in the room is carrying with them their national flag to denote their achievement. At the start of the round, each of these champions was awarded with a special medallion. Just one of these was George Volakis, the Greek national champion. Coming from a nation which houses the current world champion, Volakis clearly knows what he is doing in Yu-Gi-Oh!, and each player in the match is currently at 3-0.

Ali led off with Graceful Charity, immediately improving on his opening hand, but not having a monster to set for the first turn. However, following a set monster from the Greek Champion, he had a lot of gas, in the form of Cyber Dragon, Cyber-Stein to fetch Cyber Twin Dragon, and Nobleman of Crossout for a turn two win in dramatic style. There was nothing that the Greek champion could do in the face of such a draw, beyond shaking his head and moving to his side-deck for game two.

The first monster of game two was a flipped Magical Merchant from Volakis, which found a Snatch Steal and then attacked. Ali was holding back, without monsters, while George slowly filled his board. The reason for Ali’s hesitance soon became clear, as he flipped Torrential Tribute for a bit of 3-for-1 card advantage.

Volakis hit back in the card advantage war with Graceful Charity, then had Chaos Sorcerer, who hit Ali down low enough to stop any Cyber-Stein nonsense. Instead he made Asura Priest his first monster, and after it got turned into defence position by Enemy Controller, a Creature Swap was used to effectively steal one of George’s monsters, then Metamorphosis turned it into Thousand-Eyes Restrict

George hit back with Snatch Steal to get Thousand-Eyes Restrict, and then used Tsukuyomi to flip it face down, in order to keep the monster on the cheap. Some quick attacks later, and it was one-one, forcing the match to a deciding third game

With the first two games having been very quick, there was plenty of time for each player to ruminate on the best side-deck strategy for game three. Would Mohamed go with a hyper-aggressive Cyber-Stein plan for the decider, as he would be going first? Or would it be the alternate plan that likely lay in his side deck? Which was correct for the third game?

Ali led with a face up Mystic Tomato, and when his set trap was targeted by Mystical Space Typhoon, he used Book of Moon to flip it face down in response. The following turn he tried to use Nobleman of Crossout on his opponent’s face down monster, only for Creature Swap to stymie the attempt. The following turn Magician of Faith allowed Ali to do the trick again, this time removing George’s Dekoichi the Battlechanted Locomotive. Tsukuyomi helped Ali get his beat on, taking George to 4100, at which point the Greek champ tried to fight back with Chaos Sorcerer. Mohamed had Smashing Ground though, in order to get one more attack in, and a Nobleman of Crossout to push through the final points.

Mohamed Ali wins!