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Doomkaiser Dragon
Card# CSOC-EN043
Doomkaiser Dragon's effect isn't just for Zombie World duelists: remember that its effect can swipe copies of Plaguespreader Zombie, too!
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| Community Profile: Team Scoop |
| Jason Grabher-Meyer |
| September 10, 2005 |
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 I noticed a group I didn’t recognize, running around carrying plastic spoons. It looked like a not-quite-correct doppleganger of Team Overdose: spoons instead of toothbrushes, an in-your-face spokesman and leader much like Kris Perovic . . . heck, they even had a resident “big guy” filling the role of Anthony Alvarado. Complete with “thug style” (as Perovic called it), it seemed as though Team Overdose had started setting up franchises. I sat down with team leader Shane Scurry, and found out that Team Scoop was more than just that.
“I’m from Brooklyn. The whole team is from New York,” Scurry explained, opening the interview. “We’ve got 16 members and 11 are here.” They were doing well, too. By the end of round three, about half the team was undefeated, with the rest being 2-1. It was an impressive enough performance to distinguish Team Scoop from the rest of the field wanting their first taste of publicity.
Oh, and the name? Yup, that’s a pun alright.
Coming off of team member Rossi Marcelin’s promising showing at Shonen Jump Championship Indianapolis last month, the team seemed to be carrying a great deal of momentum. Team Scoop is comprised of relatively unknown players, but despite that, the team wields a deadly mix of raw playing skill and innovation. That’s important—though teams like Overdose and Comic Odyssey wield unstoppable playing talents, they’ve never been the big innovators of the format. At the same time, groups like Team Savage have attempted a huge amount of innovation, but have never managed any breakthrough success with an innovative deck. If Team Scoop can manage to combine both factors, they’ll be the first team in Yu-Gi-Oh! to be able to do so.
I asked how the team had come together and Scurry gladly offered the short explanation. “We were all friends, and sometimes people need help coming to big events, so we just started putting our costs together.” It’s a common enough answer, and it’s probably the reason I get most from highly competitive teams. But his next comment kind of surprised me. “We run dealer tables, too.” He casually gestured at one of the dealer tables selling cards and supplies in the back of the room. It was a really smart idea that should have been obvious in retrospect, but I’d never thought of doing it. I’ve never seen another team set up a booth at a Shonen Jump Championship either, so apparently I wasn’t alone.
For prospective teams, it’s a natural fit. Teams often accrue huge collections by pooling cards and trading online in order to ensure that the entire group has access to important and relatively expensive singles. At the same time, the boxes and packs that the teams win are virtually unnecessary, because they’re trading so aggressively at the time of a set’s release. As such, they have the raw goods, but often no way to sell them in a professional manner. As a result you get teams either opening packs they don’t need, or trying to hustle away boxes and packs at beyond-discounted prices. If your team has a ton of cards they don’t need and you’re willing to give up a member for the weekend, it might be worthwhile to inquire with the TO about running your own dealer table.
Scurry was very vocal about wanting a team profile, but actually got kind of quiet during the interview itself. So I looked him in the eye and asked him what it was that he wanted to say about the team. What message did he want to send to the world?
Without skipping a beat, he had a reply. “I want to let them know that we about to be the hottest team in the world, right now. Anybody who wants to battle us can come up to us at any given moment. We’re good friends with Team Overdose, they’re like our next-door neighbors. But we battled them at Kings Games about a month ago. We 5-0’d them!”
 The team itself consists of a group of friends from Kings Games, and they were representing the store with matching t-shirts. One of the most popular game stores on the East Coast, Kings Games is a hotbed of high-level Yu-Gi-Oh! competition, and flying their flag in a tournament is something to be respected for. Hopefully they’ll be able to make the store proud, making a name for themselves in the upcoming East Coast-accessible Shonen Jump Championships.
I asked Scurry what he himself though of the current metagame, He instantly blurted out, “I think they need to limit Giant Trunade to one.” Wow. I would never have guessed he was going to say that, but after looking at his team, it made sense. Albert Wu (whose killer OTK deck is viewable in the earlier coverage from today) is a member of Team Scoop, so they fully understood just how deadly the triple-Giant Trunade was. Wu returned from his third victory just as this interview was taking place. “There a lot of decks like Cyber-Stein and Ben Kei that reap the benefits of Giant Trunade. I think it’s dangerous now, and it’ll continue to be.” I asked if his concerns extended into the next Advanced format, despite not knowing what exactly it will look like. “Oh yeah.” Having seen how well Albert Wu was doing, it was a reasonable stance to take.
With promising up-and-comers like Albert Wu, Rossi Marcelin, and Quincy Gordon at their disposal, Team Scoop really could be a force in the near future. Many teams have attempted to combine innovation with raw skill in the past, and these guys might finally be able to pull it off. If they do well here at Shonen Jump Championship Boston, you can expect to hear more about them as the year draws to a close! |
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