When I saw a very distinguished older gentleman (very politely) laying utter waste to his opponent just scant minutes into round 1, I knew I had to get an interview. When I saw him, I was interested. When I saw he was playing Gravekeeper, I was really interested. When he popped some crazy tech like Zero Gravity—and then won with it—I was hooked.
Kirk Leonhardt, age 54, was born in North Dakota but spent most of his life in Southern California. He and his son, Lance, traveled about 60 miles to arrive at Gen Con So Cal on Thursday. “My daughter has played, but she’s in school. My son should be, but he’s been doing well, so I figured we’d make an event of the weekend to give him a reward for his studies.”
Kirk is quite the Yu-Gi-Oh! veteran. “I would say I’ve been playing for . . . ” He stops to ponder a bit. “Since my son got me into it, maybe about two and a half years? Obviously, he started first. I swore I’d never get into another game after we got into Pokémon, but then we kind of struck a little deal, so I was sort of like, ‘Alright, I’ll nurture this.’”
“I started by playing professional chess. I’m actually here with my son because I tried to get him into professional chess, but he was more interested in this. So I gave him a deal—I’d play Yu-Gi-Oh! with him if it would get him into chess, too. And since then, I’ve had a great time with it . . . building decks, playing, everything.”
Kirk is a true strategist at heart. He’s constantly building decks and has about thirty different themed builds that he uses. “Today, it’s Gravekeeper. Yesterday, I played control. My son’s playing Machines!”
Naturally, I was interested in why Kirk chose to play Gravekeeper. “It has big surprise value. Also, because of the Advanced format, it does have some advantage. It has speed and search capability, which is rare now. There are fewer Mysticals (Mystical Space Typhoon) and no Harpie’s Feather Duster, so it’s a far safer deck to play. Necrovalley doesn’t allow the Chaos element that some decks are so reliant on, and that’s nice too. They, uh . . . they swarm real quick! It fits this format.”
What was in Kirk’s side deck? “It supplements the overall aspect of my deck, and it side decks hard against burn, which I think is a popular choice now in this format.” Teching against Lockdown Burn is definitely a smart bet for a big tournament like this one. It’s a popular choice, and many main deck–only builds just can’t handle it.
With the field in the Shonen Jump Series Championship being so widely varied, I was interested in whether or not an experienced deck builder like Kirk had been surprised at all by what he saw. “I haven’t seen anything that surprising. Since I build decks, not much surprises me. There’s a great level of players here, though! It’s definitely a higher level.”
When asked how he felt about the tournament, Kirk said that he was pretty thrilled with it. After watching Vs. System get such a huge push from Upper Deck, the Shonen series is doing a lot to assure Yu-Gi-Oh! players that their favorite game won’t be left by the wayside. Still, Kirk was eager to point out that he hoped high level premier Yu-Gi-Oh! events would continue to grow in scope. “A lot of players are getting sucked into Vs. System, so we need more things for the players for this game, like this event. I’ve contemplated getting a money tournament together, and I even did some work towards it, but it was difficult to figure out a practical way to do it.”
If Kirk wins the Cyber-Stein, what will he do with it? “Put it in a collection!
I probably wouldn’t play it—I don’t know if I’d consider it fair. I’d keep it for my son. He might get to play it a bit, but I don’t think playing it would be fair!”
With a lot of playing under his belt, but not yet much of premier level reputation, Kirk Leonhardt is definitely a player to watch in this new age of Yu-Gi-Oh! competition.