Shane Scurry has done it! Exploding out of the shadows of Carlos Santiago and Paul Levitin, he’s managed to break into his first Shonen Jump Championship Top 8, and has claimed victory in the name of Team Scoop after three rounds of intense dueling!

Scurry’s first match pitted him against Roy St. Clair, and some unfortunate luck for Roy, combined with aggressive play and intelligent side decking, sealed the match for Scurry. He then moved on to play Chris Winkler, who ran a Strike Ninja build that borrowed elements from both American and European conventions. The matchup arguably favored Scurry to begin with, but some highly intelligent play from Winkler pressed the match to a third duel before Scurry managed to end it. Heavy Storm with a chained Return from the Different Dimension won the match in high style.

Finally, Scurry faced off against Canadian Chris Pittao, representing Team Xtreme. Pittao won the first duel in under five minutes, and Scurry returned the favor just as fast! But the third and final game was long, intense, and eventually Pittao had to concede. After more than fifteen passed turns in which no cards were played, each duelist’s deck had been taxed to the breaking point, and Pittao ran out of cards first, making Shane Scurry your newest Shonen Jump Champion!

The new format has proven to be highly aggressive, but a variety of decks have flourished. The Top 8 featured Chaos, Monarch, Strike Ninja, and Return from the Different Dimension decks, spelling out good things for the health of the current environment. There was also an incredible amount of tech: Mirage Dragon, Des Lacooda, Spell Shield Type-8, Brain Control, Twin-Headed Behemoth, and even Asura Priest all made a significant impact on the last three rounds of the tournament, giving duelists a lot of splashable thoughts to mull over as they build decks over the coming weeks.

And no one who took the Scrub Brush Challenge managed to make the Top 8. Sniff!

Shonen Jump Championship Columbus is exactly four weeks away, and now that we’ve got a good view of what’s possible in the new Advanced format, things are going to heat up. Be here on Saturday, May 6, to see how it all goes down at the site of the largest Shonen Jump Championship of all time!