Today, we’re going to take a step up and have a look at the Organized Play events waiting for you beyond the horizon of your local shop! The three event classes we’ll cover will all draw players from surrounding cities, creating a more varied metagame and greater competition. The result is more rounds, more surprises, higher expectations, and better payouts at the end of the day!

Organized Play—Premiere Events!

Sneak Previews:

If you’ve been playing for more than a few months, you’re probably already quite familiar with these events. The Cyberdark Impact preview was less than two weeks ago—how many of you attended? Sneak Previews offer two forms of competition: casual “open play” and sanctioned tournaments. Open play is run in a similar fashion to your local league, and is designed to present a relaxed play environment. After paying your registration fee, you’ll get five boosters to open. Build a 20-card minimum deck from the cards you get in those packs, and then look around the open play area for a half dozen or so opponents. You’ll record your wins and losses, and then report to the judge managing the area to get an extra pack once you complete a designated number of games. There’s really nothing at stake, because the extra booster is a participation prize and it isn’t linked to your performance. Like the Yu-Gi-Oh! Hobby League, this is a great format for new players, collectors, younger competitors, or experienced players who just want to kick back and have a good time.

The second draw of Sneak Previews is the tournaments. These are “Sealed Pack” tournaments—you’ll get five packs of the latest set to open and construct your deck. You can only compete with the cards you pull from your personal five packs—you can’t trade with other competitors, so don’t try. That’s cheating. Instead of the casual dueling in the open play area, you’ll play a set number of Swiss rounds, with winners receiving more packs of the new set! New stuff is always in demand, so the chance to win a bunch of it before it hits store shelves is really nice. This is the primary reason most players show up to Sneaks, but there are plenty of other incentives too. Everyone in attendance gets an exclusive promo card (while they’re still in supply) and, if you’re lucky, you might win an exclusive T-shirt based on the set. Upcoming Sneak Previews in 2007 might also feature some new rewards, so stay tuned!

In my opinion, Previews are the best place to go to trade. All the big traders come out of the woodwork to scoop up choice material from the new set, so you can get some great deals if you pull hot stuff. You can usually make good trades with older cards in your collection too, simply because there will be so many people there looking for different things. The tournaments are shorter and the open play area is relaxed, which is great for sitting down to make some leisurely trades. Previews offer lots of opportunities to make new friends and find cards you need, and the low-pressure environment just makes everything click.

Regional Championships:

Hobby Leagues are to Sneak Previews as local tournaments are to Regional championships. Regionals allow serious players to take their competition to a higher level, offering better prizes, tougher matches, and invites to Nationals for the Top 4 finishers. They run longer, too—expect the average Regional to run eight to nine rounds (not counting Top 8), compared to the four to six rounds that you’re probably used to at your local. That means that, on one hand, the tournament will test your endurance and add a new dimension to the play experience, challenging you in different ways than your usual local competition. On the other hand, you’ll have more time to spend enjoying top-notch duels.

At any Regional you can expect top finishers to earn significant product prizes, as well as Regional-exclusive playmats. The current mats feature all three of the Sacred Beasts from Yu-Gi-Oh! GX (that’s Raviel, Lord of Phantasms, Uria, Lord of Searing Flames, and Hamon, Lord of Striking Thunder for the uninitiated). Even if you’ve already got a mat you like, these prize mats pull down a pretty penny on the open market. Many PTO’s offer additional prizes as well, including high-end electronics like iPods and Nintendo DS Lites. Entry fees usually range from five to fifteen dollars, so a Top 8 finisher can make out like a bandit.

One appealing aspect of Regionals is that, unlike your local tournaments, it can be really hard to predict the metagame of such a big event. Players travel from all over the state to compete for invites and prizes, so you’ll get to see tech and play styles from places you’ve never been to. That makes the tournament more challenging, but also makes it more varied and entertaining.

Shonen Jump Championships:

These are the biggest tournaments you’ll find. Matched in North America* only by the National Championships, SJCs bring hundreds of players flocking from surrounding states and sometimes even foreign countries. They’re longer than Regionals, since they almost always clock in at nine or ten rounds, and the prizes are great. The Top 8 duelists get invites to their National Championships, and they also receive highly-coveted electronics like PSPs, DS Lites, and high-end iPods. Boxes upon boxes of cards are given out over the course of the weekend, and the number one player at the end of two days of competition (Day 2 is reserved for the Top 8 playoffs) gets a promo card only available to Shonen Jump Champions. Past promos have included Cyber-Stein (long before its release in Dark Beginnings 2), Des Volstgalph, and the current prize card, Shrink. Plus, the champion also gets a high-end gaming laptop—provided they can fend off friends and family members who “really need a new computer”—and a nice, shiny trophy too!

The level of competition you’ll find at Shonen Jump Championships is top of the line, surpassed only by National Championships and World Championships. Entire teams will work for weeks to develop killer decks and try to predict the metagame, because the prizes here are the best available. Individual players will playtest and playtest, trying to come up with the deck that will break everything. The value of the exclusive prize card is always in the four-digit range, not to mention the laptop and sealed product. Many duelists happily take a plane ride to throw down in an SJC while others pile into whatever car is available and set off on marathon road trips. The result is an event with much more varied competition than a Regional. Look at the decks that have made the Top 8 recently and you can see everything from a deck based around Chimeratech Overdragon to Prickle Fairy taking home top honors, so you never know what you’re going to see. That translates to a greater challenge and a higher level of enjoyable play experiences.

The entry fee for an SJC is almost always 20 dollars, and you can expect to pay a bit for food on-site too. Many such events are held at major gaming conventions where outside food isn’t permitted, so you might have to take the hit for a five-dollar pretzel here and there. The tasty prizes make it a worthwhile investment though, and like Sneak Previews, SJCs can be heaven for traders looking to balance out their travel with some juicy deals. Local values for cards can vary wildly, so if you can find someone who has cards you want, you can often make a huge profit in a mutually beneficial deal.

There are tons of side events at an SJC, too—small constructed events and usually some sealed play as well. If you’ve never had the chance to try out booster draft, you can probably pull together four of your friends and check it out at one of these. Each of the sides you enter gives you a shot at the second copy of the prize card! Most PTO’s will also offer a Regional on the second day of the event, so you’ve got another shot at an invite to Nationals.

Beyond that, they’re also a great place to meet other players, and you never know who you’ll see. There’s always some “big names” and lots of people you’ve only heard about, or known online. A definite “plus” for SJCs is getting the chance to play against the big names you read about here on Metagame.com, and you can make new friends (or new rivals) from all across the continent. Shonen Jump Championships are what dueling is all about—high level competition, plenty of intensity, and top-notch opportunities to meet people from all walks of life who share your interests. Participating in an SJC is an unforgettable experience: these events are where dueling legends are born. If you’re lucky and brave, you might even get the chance to compete in the Scrub Brush Challenge . . .

If you’ve stuck to the play at your local shop, expand your horizons! All you need to do is know how to play, put together your best deck, learn the rulings for your cards, study up on the policy documents, and maybe persuade someone to give you a ride. You’ll need a good supply of endurance, but the rewards awaiting you are well worth it. If your OP plans end up including a Shonen Jump Championship, make sure to come on over and say “hi.” I hope to see you there!

*I say “North America” here because Europe doesn’t have Shonen Jump magazine, so instead of having SJCs, Europeans have their own equivalent, called Pharaoh Tours. They’re pretty unique, so we’ll discuss them in a later article.