Continuing this trend of creative and relatively successful decks, Jaideep Singh entered the seventh round of the Yu-Gi-Oh! Shonen Jump TCG Championship with a 5-1 record. What deck could he have used to achieve this record, you ask? Could it be a Warrior deck? Could it be an Ocean deck? Perhaps it was the revival of Control.

Actually, Jaideep’s powerful deck was based on fusion, primarily with Dark Paladin . . . and no, I’m not joking.

Jaideep Singh came to the Las Vegas Shonen Jump TCG Championship from Bakersfield with a few of the duelists from his normal hangout. At Bakersfield, Jaideep judges the local tournaments. He also admits to getting smacked around at the local events, since he prefers to run fun decks of the standard tournament decks, such as warriors. He was told by one of the Bakersfield locals to come to the Las Vegas Shonen Jump TCG Championship anyway, as he could at least play with a different deck and have some fun. Jaideep took that advice and came to Las Vegas with a few of his friends. What he didn’t expect while dueling was to enter round 7 with five wins.

“My original version of this deck was actually a pure Spellcaster theme, with the Dark Paladin strategy incorporated,” Jaideep admitted, noting that the deck had evolved over the time leading up to the Shonen Jump TCG Championship. “The funny thing was when I added in Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning. I didn’t intend to run it, but I had a near perfect mixture of Light and Dark monsters. I also happened to have a spare sleeve, so I tossed the card in my deck.”

Jaideep is probably one of the only people I have met today that tossed the Chaos monster of Light into his deck merely because he had one spot left. The deck itself is very unique with some of Singh’s choices. One of those was the foregoing of Sinister Serpent and Night Assailant from the deck, both of which are considered near staples in a Dark Paladin theme. Jaideep mentioned that he’s got Thunder Dragons to use for the effect of Dark Paladin if it’s necessary. One of the other major concerns for the deck was the ability of fusion summoning Dark Paladin consistently. This also wasn’t a problem throughout the day. By the end of round 6, Jaideep was able to successfully fusion summon Dark Paladin nine times. This doesn’t include the many times he fusion summoned Twin-Headed Thunder Dragon. Skilled Dark Magician, Skilled White Magician, and King of the Swamp all helped to further emphasize Jaideep’s theme.

In the end, Jaideep Singh’s final record for the day was 51st place. This certainly isn’t bad, considering that over 200 duelists were competing in this event. Good luck at the next Shonen Jump TCG Championship, Jaideep!