It’s Monday, August 25, 2008, and as the days tick down to the debut of Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s on North American broadcast television, 4Kids Entertainment is giving fans of the new show a unique opportunity.

And the reason for the missing theme song? 4Kids is giving viewers the chance to listen to seven potential theme songs for the new series, and they’re letting you vote for the one you like best. Whichever track gets the most votes will actually become the new theme song for the series! It’s a pretty cool promotion. Click on over and listen to the tracks yourself—personally, I like Hyper Drive or Need for Speed, both of which are light years ahead of the pack, in my humble opinion.

I’m not a big fan of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, but I’ve really enjoyed subtitled episodes of 5D’s, and I was really into the dubbed and localized version of the first episode when I saw it live in Berlin. Go and vote! Make sure the show has a good theme song! It looks like you can vote daily, so keep that in mind.

There aren’t many drastic changes to the list this time around. In fact, the biggest changes might be the cards that had their limitations relaxed. Breaker the Magical Warrior is back, and Destiny Hero – Malicious is playable at three per deck, as are Allure of Darkness and Light and Darkness Dragon. A lot of the changes have duelists scratching their heads, so stay tuned this week because I’m going to break down the list card by card and give my thoughts on why each change was made.

You can review the list at the official Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG website.

This Week on Metagame.com

Tomorrow, Jerome McHale cooks up a decklist for those Lightsworn duelists out there who don’t yet have their copies of Charge of the Light Brigade. That group includes both Jerome and myself at the moment, so rest assured, you’re in good company. You also have more deckbuilding options than you may think, and in this week’s Almost There, Jerome will show you a Synchro-packing variant of the most recent build we’ve been using.

Wednesday, Curtis Schultz brings us even more rulings and clarifications regarding Synchro monsters. Colossal Fighter, Goyo Guardian, Red Dragon Archfiend, and Nitro Warrior get the full rundown in Duelist Academy this week, and with all of these monsters bound for competitive play, you won’t want to miss it.

On Thursday, I’m easing off my Zombie binge a bit to tackle a deck that I’ve been meaning to make: The Six Samurai. Hand of the Six Samurai has really opened up a ton of possibilities for this archetype, and I’m going to explore them all this week as I fix up a reader-contributed deck in The Apotheosis.

Last week, Bryan Camareno wrote what I think is one of his most impressive articles ever. He discussed metagame prediction and the factors that contribute to it. This week, Bryan will finish the two-part series with more observations about, and guidelines for, playtesting toward the goal of understanding a given metagame.

On Saturday, Matt Peddle pens his ninety-ninth installment of The Champions! The subject of this week’s article is the outstanding Marco Cesario! His Top 4 finish at Shonen Jump Championship Indianapolis has landed Elemental Hero Skill Drain squarely on the map, and Matt’s going to show you why the deck did so well where previous attempts at Light Beatdown variants fell short. Cesario’s deck is largely unexplored compared to bigger archetypes, so this article is a precious commodity for competitive players.

We’ll also have more from Ryan Murphy as he brings us commentary on the upcoming format changes. There’s a lot more coming up for you this week, so be sure to join us as the week marches on. There are so many new decks being created right now, and opportunity is everywhere! It’s going to sound pretty clichÈ, but it’s a great time to be a duelist.