What better way to start the Shonen Jump in Minneapolis than with a bang? Jae Kim has recently returned to the Shonen Jump circuit from a three month trip to Australia. His impact on the tournament scene before his departure was quite significant, but since then there's been new top dogs in town. One of them is Cedric Sequerra, who hasn't missed out on the Top 8 of a tournament he's entered since SJC Washington, including a win in Orlando. Cedric plays for Face2Face, which recently added Fili Luna and Chris Bowling to its roster. Both players have access to any and all cards they could ever dream of, so we're sure to be in for some big plays.
Jae won the opening roll and elected to go first. He did so with Allure of Darkness, dropping Destiny Hero - Dasher out of play. He set a pair of spell or trap cards and passed to Cedric, who played an Allure of his own. Darklord Zerato found its way out of play thanks to the Allure, and Snipe Hunter dropped from Cedric's hand. He discarded Destiny Hero - Malicious with priority to destroy Jae's set Reckless Greed, which was chained before it could be destroyed. Cedric searched for a Malicious from deck before playing another Allure, this time removing Dark Armed Dragon. Jae flipped another Reckless Greed during Cedric's end phase, as Cedric passed without attacking.
Jae started off his turn with Reinforcement of the Army for Elemental Hero Stratos, but Cedric flipped Crush Card Virus afterward! "Obviously," said Cedric, whose tendency to draw Crush Card Virus in feature matches is well known. Jae played Premature Burial on Dark Grepher, using its effect to send both a Malicious of his own from hand and Dark Magician of Chaos to the graveyard. He searched for another Malicious as well. Next he used Monster Reborn to bring back Dark Magician of Chaos and Elemental Hero Stratos thanks to the Magician's effect returning Monster Reborn to his hand. The Stratos attempted to destroy Cedric's spell or trap, which was chained to reveal Scapegoat. Jae attacked Snipe Hunter and passed.
Destiny Hero - Plasma came down for Cedric! "That's not good," commented Jae. Plasma stole the Magician and beat up Malicious. Jae couldn't draw for his turn thanks to Reckless Greed, so he simply set a spell or trap and passed to Cedric. Cedric played another Allure of Darkness to remove Dark Grepher from play, and then played Dimension Fusion! He brought back a field of monsters including Darklord Zerato, and used Reinforcement of the Army to find Strike Ninja to discard for Zerato's effect and attack for game.
"I didn't attack the goats because I had Dimension Fusion," said a disappointed Jae Kim, whose smart play backfired in a bad way. "I didn't attack with Snipe because I wanted to see what he had with Crush first," responded Cedric. Jae was running a deck similar to the one Cedric played at Toronto Regional this past weekend, so Cedric knew the deck inside and out. "You don't play too many defensive cards, right?" asked Cedric. "Oh lots," Jae said with a smirk, "Two Sakuretsu Armor, two Bottomless Trap Hole, you know . . ." Although neither player wanted to take a loss round 1, the atmosphere of the match was very light.
Jae began the second game with Elemental Hero Stratos, searching out Destiny Hero - Malicious from his deck. He set a spell or trap card as well, which was revealed to be Trap Dustshoot during Cedric's draw phase. His hand of Elemental Hero Stratos, Monster Reborn, Destiny Draw, Premature Burial, Allure of Darkness and another card was broken up quickly when Jae sent back the Stratos. Cedric made no further play, and next turn Jae summoned Necro Gardna and swung for 2400.
Cedric played Allure of Darkness next turn losing Dark Grepher. He played Destiny Draw next, discarding Destiny Hero - Disk Commander. Things weren't looking good for the returning star from California. Next Cedric played Premature Burial on the Commander, drawing two before swinging it into the Gardna. He played Monster Reborn next, reviving the Commander in defense mode and drawing another two cards. He followed up with a Reinforcement of the Army for Elemental Hero Stratos, who searched Destiny Hero - Dasher from his deck. A pair of Destiny Draws came down for Cedric, discarding the Dasher and a Malicious. He set three spell or trap cards before passing to Jae.
One was Trap Dustshoot, which was flipped during Jae's standby phase. Destiny Hero - Malicious was returned to the deck over a pair of Dark Armed Dragons, and Jae went into the tank to decide how to pull this one out. Gardna took down Disk Commander and the Stratos' bumped heads. Next turn Dark Magician of Chaos came off the top of Cedric's deck, which meant Destiny Hero - Dasher's effect could special summon him. Cedric did exactly that, grabbing Monster Reborn back. He special summoned Dark Armed Dragon but was met with Torrential Tribute.
It didn't matter though, as Cedric played Monster Reborn on Destiny Hero - Dasher, brought out another Dark Armed Dragon, used D.D. Crow to remove the Gardna, and flipped Return from the Different Dimension to bring out enough ATK points to strike for game.