It’s Monday, October 16th, and we are just two days away from the Special Set release of Dinosaur’s Rage!
Dinosaur’s Rage Special Set in Stores This Week
Itching to get your hands on the newest Structure Deck? The latest in pre-constructed goodness, Dinosaur’s Rage, won’t see a general release until next Wednesday, but you can get a jump on the competition by hitting up your local hobby store or Wal-Mart. The Dinosaur’s Rage Special Set includes one copy of the new Structure Deck, a booster pack of Power of the Duelist, and a brand new promo card never before released in North America—Five-Headed Dragon!
Sources at Upper Deck Entertainment have stated that the Special Set has only been produced in limited quantities, so be sure to get yours quickly if you’re interested in it. If you miss out, no worries: the regular edition of Dinosaur’s Rage will go on sale a short time later in all major retail outlets. The Special Set will start to appear in stores across the country on October 18th, while the regular edition will begin showing up on the 25th.
SJC Seattle in Just Under Two Weeks
With SJC Austin now behind us, all eyes are turned to the first West Coast Shonen Jump Championship in months! Get ready, because a ton of North America’s best duelists are gearing up for action at Shonen Jump Championship Seattle! The best of the West will square off, and confirmed headliners for the event include two-time Shonen Jump Champion Emon Ghaneian, and American National Champion Austin Kulman. With anticipation and excitement mounting, it looks like this is going to be one of the biggest, brightest SJCs of all time. If you want to be a part of it, all you need to do is check out the official tournament listing and start planning your path to glory!
Metagame.com will be coming to you live onsite from the Seattle Center, bringing you extended coverage all weekend long. If you can’t make it to Seattle, then you should block off the 28th and 29th anyway, because you won’t want to miss all the feature matches, decks, tech, interviews, top table updates, photo galleries, and everything else that we’ve got in store. It’s the next best thing to being there, and it’s just a click away.
Less than Three Weeks until Sneak Previews!
The next Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG expansion set, Cyber Dark Impact, looms imminent. Featuring Zane Truesdale’s Cyber Dark monsters from Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, plus a ton of never-before-seen game mechanics, it’s the last regular expansion set of the year. You can get your hands on it almost two weeks before it hits store shelves by heading out to a Sneak Preview event in your area!
Want to know where you can go to get your piece of the pre-release action? Check out the official website’s Sneak Preview locator, and you can see all the venues across the globe that will be running these exciting events. Most Sneak Previews offer both tournament competition and casual league play, so there’s something for everyone. Plus, you can score an exclusive promo card and Cyber Dark Impact t-shirts. Sneak Previews are all about having fun, trying out the new hotness, and making killer trades.
Sneaks for Cyber Dark Impact are being held on November 4th and November 5th across the globe. If you’re lucky, you can even hit up two in a single weekend! Head out, meet new friends, and pick up some boosters of Cyber Dark Impact weeks before the set’s official release. Of course, with the set’s debut scheduled mere weeks from today, we’ll be starting Cyber Dark Impact previews next week. Want to see some of the cards before they’re released? Want to know what we here at Metagame.com think about them and how they could be played? We’ll be showing you the best and most interesting cards from the set right here on Metagame, starting October 23rd.
This Week on Metagame.com
This week we debut some new columns here on Metagame, and we’ve even got a special feature or two to show off some new releases! Get ready, because we’ve got even more articles and info than ever before.
Today, Mike Rosenberg kicks things off by revisiting a card he’s looked at before. The subject of The Binder this week is Apprentice Magician, a monster Mike profiled half a year ago. Oh, how six months can change things! Apprentice Magician has undergone significant errata and a complete gameplay makeover in the eyes of many duelists. With multiple Top 8 finishes in the current format and an astounding showing at SJC Austin, this card is more playable than ever before. Mike’s going to show you why, so click on over and check it out.
Tomorrow, Jerome McHale pays tribute to America’s favorite pastime with a deck he calls The World Series. Are you the type that swings for the fences? Think you’re a big hitter? Then Jerome’s got the perfect monster for you, and he’s built an entire deck to support it. Ultimate Baseball Kid and a plethora of Fire monsters turn this deck into a tricky attacking and burning machine, and if you’ve ever wanted to see if someone could make Baseball Kid playable, well, you’re going to want to check out Almost There on Tuesday.
On Wednesday I’m back with yet another Apotheosis deck fix. Drain Gain is based around the classic combination of carefully selected effect monsters and Skill Drain, but this deck’s got some interesting twists. Not only does it pack a couple of cool card choices to mix things up and an innovative Skill Drain concept, it also aims to solve the dependency issues that so many synergy-centric decks face. The solution? Just be as good with Skill Drain off the field, as you are when it’s on the field.
Then I’ll let you into my testing gauntlet to show you the deck I’ve been itching to play. Five-Headed Dragon might not win a Shonen Jump Championship any time soon, but it gives Dragon decks what they’ve been missing: a reason to be played. Warriors have deck searching, Beasts have piercing damage, Machines have Limiter Removal, and now Dragons have one of the biggest, baddest Fusion monsters ever made. On Wednesday, I’ll show you what I’ll be playing in my local tournaments the moment I get my hands on this new promo card.
Thursday, Curtis Schultz flings open the doors to his Duelist Academy to pick up where he left off last week. This time around he looks at Ancient Lamp, showing you the different effects it has and how each works. Next week he’ll go even more in-depth, delving into the rulings complications and tricky situations that make Ancient Lamp such a difficult, but rewarding card to use.
Last week, Julia Hedberg showed you judges how to deal with rule sharks. She also started doing the same for duelists, and this Friday she’ll finish up by showing you how to identify and deal with massive rules lawyering from the player perspective. Sick of opponents who try to get you a game loss at the drop of a hat? This Friday, Solid Ground will tell you what you should and should not do to stave them off.
Vincent Tundo makes his triumphant Metagame.com debut this week! His new monthly column is called Through the Common Pile, and it’s all about showing you killer decks you probably never thought of. Heard of Hino-Kagu-Tsuchi strategies? Ever seen a Destiny Hero - Dasher build in action? Sure you have. But have you ever seen them in one deck at the same time? Vincent’s first effort here on Metagame combines two of Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG’s most cutting-edge deck ideas, then takes them one step further by siding into a completely different strategy that I guarantee you won’t see coming. Expectations are high, and you won’t be disappointed.
Finally, Matt Peddle continues his Champions series to look at a deck that’s fresh out of the block. Ryan Spicer was the odds-on favorite at Shonen Jump Championship Austin a mere eight days ago, and his two-for-two Top 8 record wasn’t the only reason. Spicer’s deck picked up where Lazaro Bellido’s left off at SJC Boston, and it may be the best Monarch deck we’ve ever seen. Matt will show you what makes it so great this weekend.
Whew! What a lineup! Be sure to head on back in another seven days when we bring you more new columns, an inside look at making Dinosaur’s Rage competition-ready, and previews of choice cards from Cyber Dark Impact.
Thanks for reading Metagame.
—Jason Grabher-Meyer
Contributing Editor, Metagame.com