It’s Monday, October 27, 2008, and the Sneak Previews are just a few days away!
Crossroads of Chaos Sneak Preview This Weekend!
If you’re like me, you’ve been counting down the days to the big event this weekend, the Crossroads of Chaos Sneak Preview. While most duelists have been anticipating the heavy Zombie and Plant support in the latest booster set, new cards not included in the Japanese version have started to leak over the past few days, and players this weekend will be 
scrabbling to get powerful new cards for Spellcasters, Gladiator Beasts, Psychics, and more. Haven’t seen the new stuff yourself? Be sure to stick with us this week here at Metagame.com, because we’ll be giving you an in-depth look at world debut cards as they hit the public view.
Once we’ve finished showing off the new hotness, you’ll get your first chance to crack packs of the new set this Saturday and Sunday! I know, I’m using a lot of exclamation marks, but I can’t really help it—my trade binder is primed and ready for this weekend, and I can’t wait to get my paws on cards like Plaguespreader Zombie, Overdrive Teleporter, Gladiator Beast Retiari, and the new promo card, Rose, Warrior of Revenge. Show up and register to play in the Sneak and you’ll get five packs of Crossroads, plus a copy of Rose, the first-ever Level 4 Tuner monster to hit the TCG. From there you’ll be able to play in casual dueling to earn one more booster pack, or compete in a Swiss-style tournament to win a whole lot more. Plus, everyone who registers has a chance to win a Crossroads of Chaos t-shirt.
There are more than 400 Sneak Preview events going on this weekend across the globe, so odds are good that there’s one somewhere near you. Go check out the Sneak Preview locator tool over at the official website to check.
If you’re going to the San Diego Sneak Preview, I’ll see you there!
Shonen Jump Championship Chicago Approaches
The dueling world is taking a bit of a break from top-level tournaments at the moment, but we’ll hit another big string of Shonen Jump Championships less than three weeks from today! On November 15, Shonen Jump action returns to Chicago. One week later, we’ll see the first-ever Shonen Jump Championship in Atlanta.
There’s still plenty of time to book your travel to these events, so be sure to check out the official event listings for more details. Chicago is the first-ever Shonen Jump tournament where the new Zombie World Structure Deck will be legal, while Atlanta will mark the debut of Crossroads of Chaos, so both events are going to be big milestones for the game.
Can’t make it yourself? Join us here on Metagame.com the weekends of November 15 and November 22, because we’re going to bring you live coverage from the tournament floor at both events! We’ll dedicate a lot of time to investigating the impact of the new cards on the tournament scene, so see it here first as new trends emerge.
Preview Weeks on Metagame.com
Today we kicked off our second of two preview weeks as Jerome McHale finished up our three-part look at new Plant cards. Miracle Fertilizer, Pollinosis, and Tytannial, Princess of Camellias work together to create a powerful negation suite, elevating Plants from a simple swarm deck to something much, much bigger. If you’re wondering about the direction Plants may take, click on over to check out Jerome’s article.
Tomorrow, Ryan Murphy gives his opinion on one of the biggest Psychic monsters ever: Overdrive Teleporter. He’ll look at this new world debut monster as well as Power Injector, and he’ll discuss the new direction that these cards send the Psychic archetype. Want to see what they do? Spoilers and in-depth analyses are just a couple of clicks away.
On Wednesday, it’s the one you’ve been waiting for: Matt Peddle takes on Gladiator Beast Retiari to discuss its potential for competitive play. The Gladiator Beast toolbox is packed with tricks, and the deck is transitioning to a slower control pace that could see it dominate once again. What does Retiari bring to the deck’s new strategy, and how good will it be for the average duelist? Matt will answer those questions and more.
David Bui joins us on Thursday to look at yet another world debut card. This time the discussion centers on the all-new trap card, Treacherous Trap Hole. Redefining high-impact monster destruction is what this card is all about, and as a purely un-costed form of removal, its potential may be unprecedented. But that activation condition can be a tricky one, and David’s going to show you how you can play around it. This one could be big.
Also on Thursday, Curtis Schultz joins us for another installment of Duelist Academy. Following up on the concepts he introduced last week, Curtis is going to go further in depth to illuminate the matter of event-specific chains provoked by monster summons. That cliffhanger question from last week’s article gets an answer, while cards like Junk Synchron and Light and Darkness Dragon get some in-depth discussion.
Bryan Camareno will finish out our series of previews on Friday, as he brings it all home with a look at two of my favorite cards from Crossroads. Secret Village of the Spellcasters is set to bring Spellcaster decks back into the competitive fray, but now the battle will be joined by two new monsters: Night’s End Sorcerer and the win condition level Tempest Magician! These two monsters mean a brand-new strategy for Spellcasters, and Bryan’s going to show you why.
But we’re not going to stop there! On the first day of the Sneak Preview weekend, Matt Peddle returns with another Battlefields article. This time around he lends new meaning to a phrase we’ve all heard over the years: "magic numbers." Ever wonder why some players just seem to pull off those big kill-turns so often? Want to know how to do it yourself? Matt’s going to show you the processes that lead to explosive one-turn wins, and the deck capabilities that help contribute to them.
That’s it for this week. See you at the Sneak Previews!
—Jason Grabher-Meyer
Contributing Editor, Metagame.com
Breaking News: New Booster Set Debuts in November!
Much to my surprise, a reliable source sent me some explosive information just minutes ago. Early next month a new booster set called Dark Legends will debut at Wal-Mart. The new set is sort of like Europe’s Retro Pack reprint booster: it draws together classic cards from Legend of Blue Eyes, Metal Raiders, and Magic Ruler, as well as earlier Starter Decks. The set will contain no Secret Rares, but it will play host to some new tournament-level reprints as well as hard-to-find promos that weren’t in Retro Pack.
Dark Legends will be available through other retail venues in January. It’ll be sold in two-booster packages, and each booster has twelve cards instead of the usual nine. If a top-secret booster set releasing mere days from today wasn’t a big enough surprise, every two-pack box also comes with a copy of (yeah, you’re not going to believe it) . . .
. . . Gorz, Emissary of Darkness!
I guess that means the set lives up to its name? We’ll have more details about Dark Legends as they become available.
—Jason