It’s Monday, the 11th of September, and we are just days away from the first big tournament of the new, Chaos-free Advanced format. All the world waits to see who (and more importantly what) will be successful at Shonen Jump Championship Boston!

Shonen Jump Championship Boston in 5 Days

It’s a new era of dueling, one in which the phrase “remove a Light and a Dark” no longer applies. Chaos Sorcerer and Tsukuyomi are forbidden, Spirit Reaper is limited, Ring of Destruction is back, and the field is wide open for innovation. In just five more days, we’ll finally get to see what that all amounts to.

Monarchs, Bazoo Return, Machines, and Warriors seem to have had the most public testing since the announcement of the new Advanced list just weeks ago, but the metagame at Boston will be anything but predictable. Water decks, Counter Fairy, Beastdown, Spellcasters, and many more strategies have gained power, and rogue decks will be everywhere this weekend at the U-Mass Boston Campus Center as some of the world’s best duelists try and answer the Question on everybody’s mind: what are the most dominant decks of this brand-new epoch?

The possibilities are endless, and as always, Metagame.com will be on-site live, bright and early this Saturday morning to give you up-to-the-minute coverage on standings, strategy, and all the dueling action. Julia Hedberg will be on-hand providing extended coverage with the Metagame blog, Scrub Brush Challenge, photo gallery, and all the stories of the day, so if you’re not going to Boston this weekend, you should be right where you are now. As SJC Boston erupts with unexpected twists and turns, you’ll get all the news and info as it arises.

Thinking of heading out? Local hotel space is still available in the Boston area, and you can find all the details about this event right here at the official Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG website. Get ready for what might be the most important Shonen Jump Championship of all time!

The Official Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG Site Gets an Upgrade

Speaking of the official Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG website, it received a facelift and an upgrade earlier this week. Replete with more info and more resources for players, it’s also sporting a brand new look, flavored by Yu-Gi-Oh! GX. For the official source on card interactions, upcoming tournaments, and the Forbidden and Limited lists, it’s gotta be Upper Deck Entertainment’s Yugioh-card.com.

Latest Hobby League Promo Revealed

Hobby League kits began shipping to retailers in North America last week, and the latest Parallel Ultra Rare League-exclusive promo is none other than the classic Trap Hole! With the format still completely undefined, we can see plenty of reasons to play the original removal trap. With Chaos Sorcerer gone, Bottomless Trap Hole has lost some of its appeal, and newly-popularized monsters like Don Zaloog and Giant Rat may make Trap Hole a worthy replacement. Removing monsters from the field more easily than Sakuretsu Armor or Bottomless Trap Hole, this golden oldie may very well take center stage in trap lineups over the coming months.

Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Collector’s Tins Announced!

This Week on Metagame.com

Mike Rosenberg kicks off the week with a look at one of my favorite monsters of all time. It’s small, it’s kawaii, it’s got a huge syringe and a reckless disregard for safe medical practices! It’s Injection Fairy Lily, and in a format where many of the game’s best duelists are lauding the strengths of aggressive strategies, Lily is leading the charge right into your opponent’s life points. Capable of laying out bruisers like Dark Magician of Chaos (let alone Jinzo and Monarch cards) all on its own, Lily is the wrong lady to mess with, and Mike is going to show you why.

Then Jerome McHale is going to show you a build of one of the most promising underdog archetypes of the new Format. With Chaos Sorcerer gone, easy monster removal is a thing of the past, and many duelists are searching for alternatives to grant them dominance in battle. The Spellcasters offer perhaps one of the best: a monster that can be searched from the deck and special summoned to the field, become big enough to take down Monarchs in battle, and destroy almost any monster, face up or face down. Aggressive beatdown stylings mingle with a high mind for synergy, as Jerome shows you a deck that’s Just Like Magic.

On Wednesday I'll show you the second of two decks this week centered around Destiny Hero - Double Dude. Swarm capability, double attacking, and an explosive, deceptive pace let this deck rip into your opponents and hit them harder than they'll ever expect. Last week you saw Jae Kim's Dark-centric build of the Double Dude/Robbin'  Goblin strategy. This time, I'll up the ante by taking on a Wind variant of the same theme. Piercing, field presence, and a heightened focus on hand disruption are the order of the week for the Apotheosis.

We’ve got even more love for the Destiny Heroes, as Curtis hits you with another session at his Duel Academy. After spending a few weeks looking at the newest Destiny Hero bruisers, he’ll now disassemble and analyze the gadgets and tricks that make them tick. Learn all the rulings and capabilities of D - Spirit, D - Chain, and Destiny Mirage, and you’ll be ready to take on those blasted Elemental Heroes on your own terms. Aster Phoenix would be proud.

Back-to-back articles from Julia Hedberg are the order of the day this Friday, as she starts up a series on one of the format’s most promising cards. It’s no secret that Deck Devastation Virus could define the next six months, but figuring out how to play it can be a challenge. The hardest part of running the Virus is deciding what to tribute for its cost, because that decision guides the rest of your deck. The problem? There are easily forty or fifty different monsters that can be used with it. This week and next, Julia will narrow that down to a compact top twenty, and analyze the strengths of each.

Then she’s slipping on the judge shirt yet again, as she gives you a five-point guide on how to act in important situations. Being unprofessional can cost you as a serious judge, but at the same time, being downright cold can cause problems too. Where do you draw the line, and where must you absolutely be professional? Julia will show you this weekend.

On Sunday, Matt Peddle will tackle a deck that might shape the future of the game. Lazaro Bellido made waves at Shonen Jump Championship Hamilton, running a dedicated Machine deck with three Cyber Phoenix cards and no Chaos Sorcerers. His devotion was exemplary, his success glorious, and Matt’s going to show you how Lazaro pulled it off. This may be one of the most formative decks of the new era, so be sure to check it out.

Finally, Simon Sangpukdee rounds out the week with another look at Elemental Hero Neos. Simon scoured the game's history to find all the cards that offer combo potential with the baddest Elemental Hero ever, and some of his top picks might surprise you. Looking to create your own unique strategy for Neos?  Simon offers plenty of building blocks to get you started.

That’s it for this week! Don’t forget to join us on Saturday morning for SJC Boston, because we’re going to be all about decklists and groundbreaking tech. If you’ve been at a loss for what to run, you’re going to get a ton of ideas this weekend, and by Sunday night we’re going to have a brand new Shonen Jump Champion!

That’s it for this week. Thanks for reading!

—Jason Grabher-Meyer

Contributing Editor, Metagame.com