While browsing through the Top 16 decks, I thought to myself, “Hmm, there’s quite a bit of Warrior/Chaos here, but there are also some creative decks that did quite well today!” One of those decks that turned some heads during the Shonen Jump TCG Championship was a concoction by Sean Brown. The discovery of his deck went something like this.

Mike: There’s lots of Warrior decks up here, a First Turn Scientist/Turtle deck, and . . . wait a minute! Is that a Flash Assailant?

Sean: Yes, that’s a Flash Assailant.

Mike: And you have Skill Drain face-up? Wait, did you just summon Dark Necrofear? And you’re competing against these decks? Dude, I have to interview you! Your deck rules!

Sean: Um . . . okay.

The conversation wasn’t exactly like that, but I was certainly surprised to see unique cards in the Top 16 like that during round 5. Sean Brown’s deck is one I’d like to nickname “Fiend Drain.”

Sean Brown started his TCG career with the Unlimited set of Magic: The Gathering. He’s been playing games for many years, and ended up starting his Yu-Gi-Oh! career with the release of Spell Ruler and with a little encouragement from his younger teenage cousins. He’s from the Air Force, currently stationed at Dallas, and enjoys his innovative decks.

Sean’s interest in the game is in creative ideas that work well at tournaments, not the ideas that have proven to be powerful. “I prefer not to run what everyone else does, so I became interested in the Fiend deck. The deck seemed pretty solid, but I had some real issues dealing with effect monsters. My friends gave me the idea of combining my older Skill Drain deck with my current Fiend deck. This creation was the result of that.”

While the Insect type is his favorite deck theme to run, Sean knew there was no way Insects could compete at a Shonen Jump TCG Championship. Fiend Drain, on the other hand, has been successful for four straight rounds, with Sean winning against a Horus deck, a Water deck, and a few standard Warrior builds. Brown admitted that he didn’t expect to get as far as he had by round 5, but it’s definite proof that creative ideas and concepts can become successful decks, even at large tournaments. While his tournament record has seen a decline since round 5, the deck itself has proven itself by competing against some of the more commonly used decks during the first half of this tournament. Hopefully Sean, and possibly other duelists, may try this unique deck concept again.