What a Top 8!

Robert Morgan, who many considered to be the top pick for a win here today, has managed to make the Top 8 of all three Shonen Jump Championships he has now attended. However, due to a missed ride and a missing wake-up call, he was unable to arrive on time for his quarterfinal. Almost 20 minutes late, he received a match loss to his opponent Shawn Long, of Team C² upon his arrival.

Long then moved on to go up against Team Villains’ James Laurent, who brought the team’s notorious Sasuke Samurai #4 and Fairy Box tech all the way to the semifinals. After receiving a game loss himself for a major play error, Lnng came back to win the match in its third duel. He was going to the finals.

There, the respected Internet duelist (who goes by the screen name Lpfan) went up against his polar opposite. Andrew Ferdella is not only a member of Team Nexus and a former Shonen Jump Champion, but he was running Anti-Return, giving him a distinct advantage against Long’s Chaos Return deck. Amazingly though, a pair of Decree, a pair of Creature Swap, and more than a year of Shonen Jump experience wasn’t enough to bring Long down. In an intense, grueling three-duel match Long emerged victorious, finishing Fredella off with the hallmark monster of the current Yu-Gi-Oh! era: Chaos Sorcerer. Our congratulations go out to Shawn Long, your newest Shonen Jump Champion!

Long’s win is just one of the many awesome stories that went down in Atlanta this weekend. David Jamieson’s Shrink deck, which packed a pair of the incredibly scarce SJC Champion promos, made waves all Saturday and landed him a very respectable 14^th place. At the same time, duelists like Max Suffridge and Corey Scoggins have already inspired thousands of competitors this weekend with their great track records and creative decks. Clockwork Control? Reversal Quiz? This event saw plenty of cool, highly competitive strategies make their Shonen Jump debut.

The Top 8 alone included a great deal of variety. Anti-Return Creature Swap, the Villains Coin Flip deck, and Zachary Johnson’s Kharin-inspired OTK all had a huge impact, with all three making the final four. The format has finally been cracked wide open, and with so many different decks Top 8ing this weekend, or coming close to qualifying for Day 2, it’s difficult to make decisive calls about the current North American metagame. One thing is for sure though, and that’s that despite Chaos Return’s eventual victory here today, its reign of dominance is over. The dueling masses are finally realizing that reliable success simply can’t be had in mirror matches, and are playing and selecting decks to beat current format trends instead of just following them.