| Day 2: Canadian National Championships |
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Everything was on the line — huge prizes, a trip to Worlds, and the title of Canadian National Champion. |
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Four-time Nationals Top 8 competitor Matt Peddle was up against Toronto’s Omar Beldon. |
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Both players have made it this far in the tournament but the real test starts here if either ever wants to claim the title of Canadian National Champion. |
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Jason Tan took second place at the National Championships in 2004, so he’s no stranger to this high-pressure scenario, but his opponent, Yannick Dubeau, is piloting the deck that’s the talk of the tournament. |
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A win here would give Peddle a shot at his fourth Nationals Top 8, but a win for Bui would be a massive windfall, and a Nats Top 8 would catapult his reputation. |
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Two of the greatest deckbuilders in the country were going head to head this round. |
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This match would be an important win for one of these up-and-coming duelists. |
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How awesome is Yannick Dubeau? |
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The main event has barely even started, but we already saw some emerging trends and fancy tech yesterday in the Last Chance Regionals. |
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Yannick Dubeau, the man who revolutionized Cyberdarks with his Day 2 finish at SJC Montreal last year, is now tackling a brand new challenge — Counter Fairies. And he’s doing it with some bizarre main decked choices. |
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Dexter Dalit is the reigning National Champion, a title he’s captured not once, but two times. |
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What a huge match! |
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Today we’ll see 113 of Canada’s best go head-to-head for the right to represent their country at the World Championships. |
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| Day 1: Last Chance Regionals |
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It was a surprising day here at the Metro Toronto Convention Center. |
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Slowly but surely, Lightsworn decks have been growing since their inaugural appearances at Shonen Jump Championship Saint Louis and UK Nationals. |
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The third Last Chance Regional of the day pitted fifteen year-old Adrian Sado against 25 year-old Tony Bernard, in a matchup of Gladiator Beasts versus Bernard’s utterly bizarre Burn deck. |
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Tsz Ching Wong's playing Macro Cosmos with a heavy emphasis on counter traps and Van’Dalgyon the Dark Dragon Lord, while Tony Bernard is playing an innovative Burn variant based heavily on the abuse of Chain Energy. |
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With the first Last Chance Regional over and done with, the second was drawing to a close as well. |
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In addition to the retinue of judging regulars here this weekend, four volunteers have been brought in from the US especially for this event. |
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Each of these duelists had overcome Gladiator Beasts, Dark Armed Dragons, and Monarch decks to get here, so it was interesting to see two non-mainstream decks doing so well in this tournament. |
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Dominic Lacaille is making waves here today with an innovative Samurai build. |
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Headed into this round I had two top picks for feature matches — John Marchand with Twilight, and his teammate John Bartlett. |
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Jon Marchand successfully qualified for the National Championships through a Last Chance Regional last year, and now he’s back, trying to duplicate his feat with Twilight. |
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316 duelists are qualified for tomorrow’s main event, but today, dozens of hopefuls will be competing in Last Chance Regionals for their final shot at an invite to the National Championships. |
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