Okay, I’ll alleviate you of the suspense. The “secret tech” in David Jamieson’s deck? It’s none other than a pair of Shrink—two of only four English-language copies in circulation today!
Jamieson’s deck is essentially a Chaos Control deck that’s optimized for the use of Shrink. Instead of doing a complete breakdown of the deck on a strategic level, I just want to look at what Jamieson is doing with Shrink itself.
The classic combo with Shrink is Don Zaloog. Attack with Don Zaloog into a bigger monster, say, Zaborg or Mobius, and the opponent has to decided then and there whether they want to use something to stop the attack. Book of Moon, Sakuretsu Armor, or Mirror Force can all repel the attack, but a duelist not expecting Shrink will see no reason to use any of those cards. After all, the Don is just going to be destroyed in battle right?
Once you hit the damage step, only counter traps or spell speed 2 effects that directly alter battle stats can be activated. That’s when Jamieson flips Shrink to reduce the ATK of the attack target. At that point, it’s too late to cut off the attack with conventional answers. The attack target gets destroyed, Don hits the opposing duelist’s life points, and its effect strips their hand of a card. Brutal.
It works on defense too, turning an attacking monster with high ATK into a waiting victim for a Don beating. Again, the opponent’s monster gets destroyed by Don in battle, and Don’s effect forces a discard.
Airknight Parshath can take the place of Don in the attacking scenario, destroying a monster with higher printed ATK while earning Jamieson a card to replace Shrink. In addition, the deck runs plenty of Thunder Dragon tricks (Brain Control, Metamorphosis, and others) and a face up attack position Dragon can draw out attacks from bigger monsters that then get Shrink-ed down to size.
My favorite trick of Jamieson’s is one I’ve never heard of before. “I can summon Breaker the Magical Warrior, and if the opponent tries to remove it with Bottomless Trap Hole I can chain Shrink to drop its ATK below Bottomless Trap Hole’s range. Then I can use the token to break something, and on the following turn it’ll go back to 1600 ATK.” It’s a nice trick that can quickly simplify a field, making the hand control effect of Don all the more significant.
Royal Decree locks the opponent out of their Sakuretsu Armors and Bottomless Trap Holes, while Jamieson still has Shrink to rely on. “They’re even better than Sakuretsu,” he remarked. “Not only can they destroy virtually anything that attacks, provided I have an attack position monster, but they can result in a fair amount of damage too.
Other tricks? “They can destroy Spirit Reaper since they target. That clears the field for my Spirit Reapers and Don Zaloogs.” They keep Dark Balter the Terrible safe from big attackers too, allowing Jamieson to get unparalleled control since virtually nothing can attack over Balter.
So how did Jamieson get two copies of the game’s rarest card? “I got one from teammate Nick Curtis, and I bought the second one off eBay. It’s the one Brent Yetter won.” As a doctor, he’s apparently got enough cash to invest in the collectible market.
“My mother always told me I had more dollars than sense.” He grinned.
With a 2-0 record, David Jamieson is well on his way to a Day 2 qualification. A win here this weekend would be a first for Team Evolution, a significant group that has been around for years but has never managed to capture Shonen Jump gold.
With one of North America’s most unique decks in his possession, David Jamieson is a strong dark-horse bet for the Top 8. If he wins a Shrink here tomorrow, we know exactly what he’ll be doing with it.