It’s Tuesday, September 2, 2008. An all-new Advanced format is upon us: this weekend we’ll see The Duelist Genesis make its debut at Shonen Jump Championship Baltimore, and one week after that, Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s hits the airwaves in North America!

But the biggest change to the competitive environment is not the new Advanced list. Instead, the driving force behind innovation in the new format is The Duelist Genesis, which is Jump-legal for the first time ever this weekend. Duelists are looking for ways to take advantage of the new Synchro monsters, and many players are looking to run Dark Armed Dragon, Light and Darkness Dragon, or Monarch decks built around Emergency Teleport. Lightsworn received a huge boost in the form of Charge of the Light Brigade, while Gladiator Beasts now pack a powerful negation engine thanks to Gladiator Beast War Chariot. Even the Six Samurai may make an appearance thanks to Hand of the Six Samurai unlocking viability in older cards.

What will come out on top? Many are still expecting Gladiator Beasts to keep their death grip on the top tables, but Emergency Teleport variants are certainly the frontrunners from the new breed of decks. Everything’s up in the air as we count down the days to this tournament. New formats always reward great strategists, and we’re bound to see some big surprises.

Do I sound excited? Thrilled? Pumped? Edge-of-my-seat impatient?! Well, that's probably because I am! If you’re heading out to compete but haven’t locked in all of your plans yet, be sure to hit up the event listing to find out the essentials. If you can’t make it to the event, be sure to check out our live coverage from the tournament floor, because this is one tournament you won’t want to miss!

Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s debuts at 10:30 am in the CW4Kids block on Saturday, September 13. In the meantime, you can vote to decide what the new theme song will be over at the official 4Kids website. Go-go, Need for Speed!

Today, Jerome McHale brings you a deck that I, myself, have been meaning to build—Ancient Gears with Geartown. It’s funny that it would take the end of the GX era for Ancient Gears to get their best support card of all time. But it’s finally here, and it’s a pretty darn impressive card. Why did Jerome build a whole deck around it? Check out his Almost There column and read the answers. It’s a pretty cool deck for casual or local play.

It’s another mailbag week for Curtis Schultz as he answers your questions in this week’s Duelist Academy! Curtis will tackle confusion about Charge of the Light Brigade, Cyberdarks sucking up Synchros, Oyster Meister, and Gladiator Beast War Chariot. Newly released cards have brought a lot of questions to the table, many of them for highly competitive new additions to the environment, so be sure to give this one a read.

Thursday, Matt Peddle draws on one of the best feature matches from the World Championship to make a big point about skilled play in this game. How do the best duelists get a win out of impossible situations? How do they capitalize on average situations to win out over superior draws or bad matchups? It’s not luck. And Matt discusses some important play philosophy that can benefit how you play and build virtually any strategy. This one’s a must-read.

Bryan Camareno’s back on Friday, and while his last two articles dealt with basic testing philosophy and metagame prediction, his new article delves even deeper into the playtesting experience. This time, Bryan’s going to discuss the challenges and benefits of group testing, taking the process several steps further to get better results. Group playtesting comes with some unique challenges—and often doesn’t work because of them. But with Bryan’s tips, you’ll be ready to start a successful testing group.

Dwayne Delamotta took Lightsworn one step further than they’d ever been before, bringing the deck to a Top 4 finish at Shonen Jump Championship Indianapolis. What set his unique build apart, and what made it such a good choice? This Saturday in The Champions, Matt Peddle’s going to dissect Dwayne’s deck. Matt is going to show you why it’s a drastic departure from previous builds.

Finally, Ryan Murphy closes out our week with a Traditional format variant of a deck that saw success at Shonen Jump Championship Toronto: Gearfried the Iron Knight. This deck adapts well to the Advanced format, so even if you don’t play the Traditional format, there’s a lot here that can be useful to you in serious competition. With Reinforcement of the Army at three per deck, a lot of possibilities are wide open, and this may be one of the best.

That’s it for this week, but don’t forget to join us this weekend for Shonen Jump Championship Baltimore. See you there!