It’s Tuesday, July 8, 2008, and with Shonen Jump Championship Honolulu taking place this coming weekend, we pause to celebrate another new Shonen Jump Champion!
Michael Kohanim Wins Shonen Jump Championship Philadelphia
The road to victory was a tough one. Kohanim began his Sunday as the dark-horse pick dueling Robert Ackerman, then he narrowly avoided defeat, thanks to a huge topdeck (and some skilled plays that followed) against Lazaro Bellido. From there, he competed against up-and-comer Tariq Williams, and finally, he faced off against the indomitable Jose Arocho in the finals. Three of his four Top 16 rounds were mirror matches, and Kohanim’s skilled turned what some would call a coin toss into decisive victories. Some of his plays really were awesome.
Missed the action? You can check out the extended coverage right here on Metagame.com. Thanks to the volunteer efforts of Matt Peddle, David Bui, and Kris Perovic, there are way more SJC feature matches to devour than we’ve had in ages! Check it out for unparalleled insight.
Shonen Jump Championship Honolulu This Weekend
We’ve had three major tournaments in the past three weeks, but there’s still one more to go! Shonen Jump action hits Hawaii for the first time ever. This weekend, history will be made at the Neil Blaisdell Center in beautiful Honolulu.
Check out www.SJCHawaii.com for a ton of info about this landmark tournament. There, you’ll find prize info, an event schedule, and even information on local sightseeing—after all, it is Hawaii! Want to save some time on Saturday morning? Take advantage of the online preregistration. Skip the stress of the registration line on Saturday morning, and catch some fun in the sun instead.
No one knows just how many competitors will be making the trip to Honolulu—let alone who’s going—so this is one tournament that’s bound to be packed with surprises. Anything can happen, and in five days, we’ll have a brand new Shonen Jump Champion!
This Week on Metagame
Yesterday, I started the week with a look at what’s fast becoming my favorite spell in the current format: Enemy Controller. I touched on the Controller’s potential in coverage at 
Shonen Jump Championship Philadelphia, but there was a lot left unexplored. This week in The Binder, I’m going to talk about everything this versatile card can do, and why you should be testing it in your deck.
Today, Jerome McHale brings us something that I thought I’d never see: a competitive Arcana Force deck. Jerome pares conflicting effects to get at the synergetic core of this oft-ignored archetype, and the result is a surprisingly good deck with some impressive tricks. Which Arcana monsters made the cut, and which didn’t? More than that, how on Earth did Jerome McHale make a playable deck around them? Click on over to find out!
Tomorrow, Curtis Schultz continues his Duelist Academy series on triggered effects with a look at mandatory triggers. How do they work, and how do they interact with chains (both chains being built and chains in the process of resolving)? What happens when several mandatory effects are triggered all at once? How could the order of triggered effects change the outcome of a duel? Curtis is going to answer these questions and more, in this must-read installment.
Two weeks ago, Matt Peddle began a discussion about Morphing Jar techniques in his Battlefields column. He promised a follow-up, but in the mean time, he made some slick Morphing Jar moves at the Canadian National Championship. Matt’s going to bring everything full circle on Thursday as he examines Morphing Jar plays from a unique perspective: his own!
Bryan Camareno joins us on Friday to teach you more basic problem-solving techniques that will help you broaden your perspective and up your win ratio. The different options you find 
at your disposal when you evaluate an ongoing game is going to give you more information, and Bryan’s got two easy tricks to add to your dueling repertoire. No math this time—instead, it’s all about vantage points and the questions you should be asking.
Matt Peddle joins us again on Saturday, as he looks at his second Counter Fairy deck in three weeks! Yannick Dubeau made a huge impact at the Canadian National Championship, playing the Arcana Force–enabled deck he calls "Counter Fools." The deck is a creative offshoot from Jerome McHale’s seminal build, and it takes the skeletal frame Jerome created to new and unique places. Even if you read all about Dubeau’s deck in the Nationals coverage, be sure to check out this in-depth review for even more tips, tricks, and insight.
Finally, Ryan Murphy takes into the Forgotten Format a deck that few duelists have ever attempted: Gadgets. In an explosive format where Chaos Emperor Dragon – Envoy of the End and Magical Scientist are so often kings, how could little Yugi’s grindingly slow clockworks ever survive? The answer will surprise you, and it may be a big innovation for the Advanced Format as well. Don’t miss this one!
That’s it for this week. But join us in another Seven Days, as we begin our countdown to Shonen Jump Championship Toronto and the Sneak Preview release of The Duelist Genesis.
Thanks for reading!
—Jason Grabher-Meyer
Contributing Editor, Metagame.com