It’s Monday, June 11th, 2007, and we are getting ready for the most intense three weeks of the year! The European Championships and U.S. National Championships are just days away, but this weekend, all eyes will turn to the Great White North, as we prepare for . . .
Canadian National Championships on June 17th
Six days from today, we’ll bring you coverage of Canada’s most anticipated tournament of the year—live from the floor of the Metro Toronto Convention Center! Smack dab in the heart of downtown Toronto, this one is going to be a tournament to remember. With its all-new location, this could be the most hotly contested Canadian Championship we’ve ever seen.
Not qualified yet? This year, instead of having just three Last Chance Regionals (LCRs) giving out twelve invites total, an unlimited number of 32-man Regionals will be run instead. Each LCR will be launched when 32 duelists have signed up, and will be run in single-elimination format, giving the winner his or her invite after five rounds. If you competed in a Last Chance Regional last year and remember the size of those events, this change will probably be a welcome one.
You can find in-depth details on main event registration, directions to the venue, prize info, invite list, and all the other information you need if you’re going to be attending, right at the PTO’s official website! Just hit up Professional Event Services’ Canadian Nationals page.
We’ll be starting coverage this weekend on Saturday the 16th, bringing you news and speculation as to what the weekend will hold, plus feature match reports of the Last Chance Regionals! Canadian Nationals will set the tone for U.S. Nats one week later, so this is going to be one to watch for virtually any North American duelist.
U.S. Nationals on June 23rd
Speaking of the U.S. National Championships, Metagame.com will be coming to you live from the Grand Ballrooms of the Greater Columbus Convention Center on June 23rd and 24th, as the United States crowns another National Champ! Matt Peddle will be joining me onsite to bring you all the best decks, feature matches, and tech that you can’t wait to see. Over the past weeks I’ve had an insider look at what some of the nation’s most famous duelists are bringing to the tables, and trust me—there are going to be some big surprises.
Last Chance Regionals will offer you one more opportunity to get your invite the Friday before the event, and the new LCR system in place at Canadian Nationals will be used in Columbus too. For details on the venue, the amazing prizes, and everything you need to know to compete, check out Professional Event Services’ official U.S. National Championships page.
This Week on Metagame.com
No other Elemental Hero has ever had the impact of Elemental Hero Stratos. A star player in three proven strategies currently seated at the top of the Advanced format, Stratos’s release made the Elemental Heroes and Destiny Heroes into what they are today. What makes him so good, and how has he been used? More importantly, how might he be used in the future? Mike Rosenberg tackles these questions and more, so check out today’s article.
On Tuesday Jerome McHale takes a crack at a deck type that’s got some very quiet, very powerful rumblings surrounding it as we head into National Championships. Harpie Queen has unlocked the potential of the Harpie monsters, and a lot of high-profile duelists have taken note. Jerome’s going to explain what makes Harpies such a hot pick for the next few weeks, while sharing his personal build. It’s a definite must-read!
While we’ve had several articles centering upon field-search monsters from Force of the Breaker, one field-searcher has gone almost entirely unnoticed: Archfiend General. I’m going to put the General to work in a devious deck that can devastate your opponent’s hand before he or she ever plays a single card, and the result is something you probably won’t expect.
The Crystal Beasts are still garnering attention as the deck to beat from Force of the Breaker. Curtis Schultz continues his lessons on this hot monster group in his Duel Academy this Thursday, discussing rulings for two of Jesse Anderson’s most powerful cards: Crystal Abundance and Rare Value. What happens when Abundance special summons multiple copies of Crystal Beast Sapphire Pegasus? Does Rare Value work when [Macro Cosmos] is in play? For answers to all of your Crystal Beast questions, turn to Curtis all month long.
Both Julia Hedberg and I have written on the importance of losing as a competitive duelist. Losses can be the biggest opportunities for growth in your dueling career, and the trick to benefiting from them is knowing how to use them to your advantage. This Friday, Bryan Camareno shows you what to do when you get smacked down, in order to pick yourself back up and get even stronger.
Joe Whittaker took the dueling world by storm last month, smashing his way through the field at the United Kingdom National Championships to make it all the way to the finals. His secret? An offbeat Gadget deck that ran only four traps, three of which were [Royal Decree]. Defying convention and prioritizing an all-new approach to a classic strategy paid off for JoeJoe, and Matt Peddle is going to show you how he did it in this Saturday’s edition of The Champions.
Finally, our latest addition to the Metagame.com team, Ryan Murphy, debuts his new column this Sunday. For years, we here at Metagame.com have been purely devoted to the Advanced format, but now we’re bringing you our first Traditional-focused article series! Every two weeks, Ryan’s going to show you a Traditional format deck that promises to be competitive and fun, ranging from modern classics to the truly unique. This week, he starts on the former, showing you today’s version of the age-old Magical Scientist OTK.
That’s it for now! Don’t forget to join us for two days of coverage from Canadian Nationals, and get ready for an exciting five weeks in dueling!
—Jason Grabher-Meyer
Contributing Editor, Metagame.com