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It all comes down to this: two duelists who had never made a Shonen Jump Championship Top 8 before, duking it out for a top-of-the-line laptop, Des Volstgalph, and the glory of a Shonen Jump Championship title. |
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Chock opened game one, setting two cards to his spell and trap zone, a monster, and passing. |
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Manuel De Oliveira had traveled here this weekend from Switzerland, and had succeded in the goal of reaching Top 8 with a Control-heavy Warrior Toolbox deck. Matt Laurents was from Pasadena, and was playing Soul Control. |
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I’d heard a lot about Team J-Spot over the past few months, but nothing really solid. Their name just kept popping up. |
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Check out the Top 8 decklists here! |
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Bode went undefeated in Day 1 of Shonen Jump Atlanta, and was now on the bubble for Day 2 here in San Francisco. Chock was also fighting for entry to the Top 8, competing with his surprisingly successful Burn deck. |
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I blinked at Navarro. “Okay, so, just to be sure I’m not mishearing you and making a hideous racial slur . . . you want me to put into the match coverage that you like tacos?” I asked. |
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Carlos Santiago is the well-recognized duelist from Team Scoop, following close on the heels of Paul Levitin with three Shonen Jump Top 8 appearances. His opponent, Jeff Vertrees, is a relatively unknown duelist from Sac Town’s Finest. |
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Jeff Vertrees, from Sac Town’s Finest, tore though the early rounds of competition to nab a 5-1 record. He did it with a really unique Chaos deck, packing three copies of Chaos Sorcerer, three Thunder Dragon, and, of all things, three copies of Helping Robo For Combat . . . ? |
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With so many top players dropping like flies, the field is wide open for newer teams and independent players. One of the day’s best is a Northern California team called Sac Town’s Finest. |
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I live for tech. Maybe I’ve been listening to a little too much Kanye West lately, but when it comes to silver bullets, “I don’t like it unless it’s brand new.” |
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Let’s be honest—virtually all the top players in the game agreed that Dark World was good, but not quite good enough. Though the newest monster family on the block packs a ton of impressive effects, no one was able to juice a Championship-quality deck out of it yet . . . until now. |
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There was no way around it—you can’t cover the last Shonen Jump Championship of the year and not talk to the hottest player in the game. |
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Consistency is a huge issue when you’re trying to evaluate the strength of a single player—and even more so when you’re gauging the level of challenge presented by an entire metagame. |
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Here are the top tech cards that duelists ran today as they were hoping to find silver bullets for the Return matchup. |
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The tournament has barely begun, and already there’s a very obvious new deck on the scene. |
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Today marks Day 1 of the final Shonen Jump Championship of 2005, and as duelists filter into the San Mateo Expo Center one thing is clear—as the year draws to a close, the competition just keeps getting more and more intense. |
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