It’s Tuesday, April 1, 2008, and while the dueling world celebrates its newest Shonen Jump Champion, we are less than two weeks away from the next tournament in the SJC series!
Jerry Wang Wins Columbus, and Minneapolis Is Just Days Away!
This past weekend, Jerry Wang defeated Erin Diaz’s amazing Shadowpriestess of Ohm FTK deck in a truly epic finals match. It was the perfect ending to an intense weekend filled with speed, speed, and more speed.
Dark Armed Return took the tournament again, but this time it was an innovative build that heavily emphasized three copies of Cyber Valley that stole the show. Jerry pulled out all the stops and packed tech like Dark Grepher and Destiny Hero – Malicious to put together huge plays that other Return players weren’t capable of. Missed the coverage the first time around? You can still read all about this two-day competition right here on Metagame
. Scoring explosive win after explosive win, Jerry’s example will certainly set the pace for future Shonen Jump Championships.
We won’t have to wait long to see his influence! Shonen Jump Championship Minneapolis is less than two weeks away, and Metagame will be bringing you live coverage straight from the Minneapolis Convention Center. There’s still time to make your travel plans, so if you’re interested in heading out to the latest Shonen Jump Championship and taking a shot at a tricked-out laptop, a copy of Doomcaliber Knight, and the glory of a Championship title, head over to UDE’s official event listing to get the info you need. You’ll find even more information over on the Legion Events website, the Premier Tournament Organizer for this tournament. There, you’ll find important details on side event offerings and the side event Doomcaliber Knight, so be sure to check it out.
Summer is right around the corner, and SJC action is heating up! If you can’t be there in person, join us here on Metagame to read about all the feature matches and decks that define the weekend. See you there!
This Week on Metagame.com
Yesterday, I started off our week with a look at what I consider to be one of the sleeper hits from Phantom Darkness. For weeks, I’ve been looking for a deck that can slow down games long enough to outlast Dark Armed Return, then turn around and capitalize on the opponent’s ambition. I think I’ve finally found it: The Dark Creator. I explained how this woefully underplayed Secret Rare might be just the right monster to defeat Dark Armed Return, so check it out and see what I had to say.
It’s no secret that with all the OTKs going on in this format, and the huge strings of draw cards, duelists will often play five, ten, or more cards on a single turn nowadays. That’s earned Chain Energy a bit of attention. In today’s Almost There, Jerome McHale’s building a deck around Chain Energy and some similar effects. The result is a cool, combo-busting deck that’ll teach OTK players a lesson. Jerome has but one request: don’t use it for evil.
Earlier this month, I wrote about Van’Dalgyon the Dark Dragon Lord, and I found that I had some serious research to do before I could talk about how its effects worked—this is one complicated monster! I didn’t touch on a lot of important rulings, so today, it’s Curtis Schultz to the rescue, as he swings open the doors to his Duelist Academy and pulls back the curtain, discussing important technical aspects of this hugely powerful, and often misunderstood, monster.
On Thursday, we debut Matt Peddle’s new biweekly column, Legends from the Battlefields. Matt will still be joining us weekly via The Champions, but his new column has a different focus. Matt’s going to examine particular plays made in the past, from such sources as Metagame feature matches and his own dueling experience, and will show you what those historic plays could mean for your game. This week, he gets started with a look at a big-time feature match from 2005, and a little thing we now know as the "pro Storm."
A shocking number of more than fifty competitors at Shonen Jump Championship Costa Mesa took game-loss penalties for decklist errors! How does that even happen in this day and age? Bryan Camareno answers that question and many more in this week’s installment of The Practical Duelist. He’ll discuss what you can do to make sure you’re never hamstrung by your own decklist. If you think this article isn’t for you, I’ll point out that I’ve seen a significant number of Shonen Jump Champions make decklist errors that cost them games. This problem can affect anybody, so read up this Friday!
Saturday, Matt Peddle discusses a fan-favorite deck from Costa Mesa: Peter Navarro’s Dark Armed Return with Necro Gardna. Judging by the amount of Necro Gardna we saw at Columbus this past week, a lot of people felt Navarro’s deck was impressive. Gardna is just one part of Navarro’s winning strategy though, and Matt’s going to dissect his deck to show you all the important synergies that make it so good. This one’s a must-read.
Finally, on Sunday in The Forgotten Format, Ryan Murphy will continue his recent mission to build decks that can defeat Dark Armed Return. This time around, he’s building a Traditional format version of Gravekeeper’s with some cool tech and some interesting innovations. Like most of Ryan’s decks, this one can be adapted to the Advanced format with relative ease, so no matter which format you like to play, you should really check this one out.
And that’s it for the week! I’m headed to Tokyo tomorrow, but we’ll be back next week with more great articles. We’ll also start counting down the days to preview pieces featuring the new cards from the upcoming booster set, Light of Destruction.
Exciting times! As always, thanks for joining us.
—Jason Grabher-Meyer
Contributing Editor, Metagame.com