It’s Tuesday, October 7, 2008, and we’ve got a brand new, two-time Shonen Jump Champion!
Cesar Gonzalez Takes His Second Shonen Jump Championship
Teleport Dark Armed Dragon ruled the weekend, yet again, at Shonen Jump Championship Seattle, the biggest Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG tournament ever held in Seattle! It was a weekend full of surprises even before round 1 started, as the turnout for the Jump exceeded expectations 
by more than double the number of anticipated duelists! What has traditionally been a small tournament defied predictions, only to bring us some shocking competition on Day 2.
First, Austin Kulman returned to the Day 2 tables for the first time since his National Championship win. Now fourteen years old, Austin was still as fearless as ever, falling only to the eventual Champion in a match that went to game 3. Even more surprising was the appearance of Austria’s Claudio Kirchmair! The European Championship Finalist and Worlds Top 4 competitor made it all the way to the Top 8, devastating American duelists on his way to Day 2.
Local favorite Eric Ing made his return to high-level dueling and took a revolutionary build of Gladiator Beasts all the way to Day 2. Meanwhile, former Day 2 competitor Tomas Mijares wielded an innovative and aggressively metagamed deck called "Middle City," and utterly destroyed two-time Champion Ryan Hayakawa in an unforgettable Day 1 feature match. Ing and Mijares’s decks could be top picks over the coming weeks.
At the end of the weekend, it was Cesar "The Princess" Gonzalez who took home top honors, plowing through Day 2 with 2-0 victory after 2-0 victory! Congratulations to all the competitors at Shonen Jump Championship Seattle! And a special congrats Cesar Gonzalez—your newest two-time Shonen Jump Champion!
More Shonen Jump Action in Two Weeks!
We’ve just had two Shonen Jump Championships in just as many weeks, and while duelists get the coming weekend off, many are already gearing up for Shonen Jump Championship Charlotte!
Premier Tournament Organizer Star City Games presents yet another massive Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG Tournament in less than two weeks, and you can find all the info you need over at their official website. Star City is offering an online signup service that will make your Saturday morning a lot easier once Day 1 rolls around, and they’ve negotiated a special rate at the nearby Crowne Plaza Hotel, too—you can find details on that and more over on their site.
With Teleport Dark Armed dominating and Lightsworn just a few steps behind, the expected metagame has been cemented. Now, it’s time to bust out the tech and get ready to metagame against the decks to beat! Can Teleport Dark Armed’s reign continue? Can anybody take it down? And what surprises are in store for this event? We’ll have those answers and more as we bring you live coverage from the tournament floor, bright and early Saturday morning at the Charlotte Convention Center!
This Week on Metagame
On Monday, I wrote about an unlikely piece of Lightsworn tech that has been completely overlooked: Lightsworn Sabre. I, myself, had no interest in the card as it seemed to suffer 
from the usual challenges facing equip spells, but now that I’ve seen Lightsworn get thumped by TeleDAD over and over again, I think this underrated equip might be just what is needed to go that extra mile. Find out why in this week’s installment of The Binder.
Today, Jerome McHale brought us what I think is the best modern Six Samurai deck I’ve ever seen. Samurai players gave a big positive response to my build a month and a half ago in The Apotheosis, but Jerome’s deck picks up where I left off and takes the deck to all new heights. Me? I’m netdecking it for my testing gauntlet, and if you’ve got any interest in the Samurai, this article is a definite must-read.
Junk Synchron has been an intriguing underdog pick in a lot of recent experimental decks, but many players have avoided it due to some basic rulings confusions. Curtis is going to clear up those confusions in tomorrow's Duelist Academy, as he discusses the finer details of Yusei’s signature tuner. How can you get the most out of its special summon effect, and which monsters does it find synergy with? Curtis will lay it all out, so you can understand how good this card really is.
On Thursday, I’m going to take a run at fixing up a deck based on Elemental Hero Voltic by throwing in a backup strategy that turns Voltic into the catalyst for a vicious chain reaction. This deck can do some pretty explosive things while creating big problems for the top two decks in the format, so I’m really happy with way it turned out. Check it out this week in The Apotheosis.
Friday, Bryan Camareno joins us for another article in his Practical Duelist series. This week, he’ll be discussing the qualities of truly great Yu-G-Oh! TCG players. How do the greats become so consistent, so respected, and so darn good at making Day 2? What qualities can you develop to join their ranks? Bryan’s going to discuss many different aspects of this issue, giving you some great tips on how to get to where you want to be.
Jason Holloway made a splash at Shonen Jump Championship Baltimore when he showed up with a bizarre Zombie and Beast deck. He fell short of Day 2 at that event, but when he 
brought a reduxed version to Tulsa, things went a whole lot better, and he made it all the way to the Top 4. How did he do it? What made his strange strategy so effective? In this Saturday’s The Champions, Matt Peddle’s going to show you why Holloway was so successful.
Finally, Ryan Murphy closes out our week on Sunday by discussing a deck he’s been toying with for months. This one is for the Advanced format, and it runs only five different monsters. The kicker? Four of those monsters are Barrier Statues! Like most of Ryan’s recent creations, this deck looks crazy enough to work, and it’s been fine-tuned for the current expected metagame. If you’re looking for something totally different to play, this deck has what you need.
That’s it for this week, but join us in another seven days as we begin our countdown to the weekend of November first and the Sneak Preview release of Crossroads of Chaos!
—Jason Grabher-Meyer
Contributing Editor, Metagame.com