It’s Monday, January 28th 2008, and as we gear up for the 50th Shonen Jump Championship just weeks from today, the dueling world is celebrating its newest Champion!
Cedric Sequerra Wins Shonen Jump Championship Orlando
Cedric Sequerra and James Neumann didn’t have their minds on exclusive prize cards, laptops, or iPods and Wiis when they set out from Quebec to compete in
Shonen Jump Orlando. All they wanted to do was make a name for their new team, representing FaceToFace Games in Montreal. Both duelists made it to the Top 16—an incredible accomplishment for their team—but Sequerra went even further, winning the entire tournament.
After plowing through respected local Glenn Lightfoot, Sequerra had to play a duelist who defeated him in the Swiss Rounds of Day 1: Alonzo Peters. This time he encountered little resistance, and despite Alonzo’s strong efforts, Sequerra just seemed to have better cards. Matt Tuxford presented a hideous matchup—Gadgets against Sequerra’s Light and Darkness Dragon—but even Tuxford fell to Sequerra’s refined play skills.
Finally, a pair of devastating Crush Card Virus activations let Sequerra cut through finalist Hector Heras like a warm knife through butter. Game 1 was a fight, but Game 2 was nothing short of an execution, and Heras scooped before the duel could even end: holding no cards to his opponent’s six or seven. It was a beating.
The tournament had some very interesting points. Though Light and Darkness Dragon won the day again, Gadgets made a massive showing, with four duelists taking them to Day 2. That’s going to be a formative event heading into Shonen Jump Houston, and with the post-Phantom Darkness metagame a mystery to most duelists, things are now even more up in the air. Our congratulations go out to everyone who competed in Orlando, but especially Cedric Sequerra, your newest Shonen Jump Champion!
You can read all the coverage from this awesome event and relive all the action right here on Metagame.com.
Details About 50th Shonen Jump Revealed
Sources close to Upper Deck Entertainment revealed some exciting details about the prize structure for the upcoming Shonen Jump Championship in Costa Mesa, the 50th in the prestigious Shonen Jump series of tournaments.
Previous details had included a cut to Top 32 instead of Top 16, plus the announcement that a new prize card would be replacing Gold Sarcophagus. But new details have emerged, and they have a lot of duelists making travel plans.
Our sources have indicated that the winner of the tournament will take home one copy of every Shonen Jump Championship prize card ever released: Cyber-Stein, Des Volstgalph, Shrink, Crush Card Virus, Gold Sarcophagus, and the as-of-yet-unknown new card to be launched at this event. They’ll also receive a trophy, or set of trophies, with an additional set of the prize cards imbedded visibly inside for display purposes. The cards will be impossible to extract—probably sealed in Lucite or something. These are just two of the prizes the winner will take home.
From there, the new prize card will extend down through the Top 4, so there will be no playoff for 3rd and 4th place. There will be an additional set of the previous prize cards on offer, and 2nd place will get first pick of one of them. 3rd place will get second choice, and 4th place will get third choice. The remaining prize cards from this set will be offered as part of the side event prizes.
This earthshaking prize structure blows away anything rumormongers were anticipating, and it’s just one of many aspects of what’s shaping up to be the greatest Yu-Gi-Oh! tournament of all time. We’ll bring you more information as it becomes available.
Duelist Packs Hit Stores This Week!
The latest pair of duelist packs, Jaden Yuki 3 and Jesse Anderson, arrive in stores tomorrow. Contact your local hobby store to reserve yours, because that first shipment will probably sell out really quick. Both duelist packs have some seriously competitive cards, and we’ll be telling you all about them over the coming weeks.
This Week On Metagame.com
This week, many of our writers are focusing on the impact of the new cards in Phantom Darkness. I get things started with an in-depth look at the set’s biggest surprise, Allure of Darkness! If you attended a Sneak Preview, you probably know how much hype this new TCG-exclusive spell is already getting, and if you don’t have your playset yet, you’re probably counting your lucky stars that it’s an ultra rare. What makes this Destiny Draw spinoff so good, and how does it compare to contemporary cards? I’ll answer those questions and more today.
On Tuesday Jerome McHale tackles one of the most talked-about decks from Phantom Darkness, building a strategy around The Dark Creator! Made up of over twenty cards from Phantom Darkness, it’s a perfect example of the kind of dedication this set rewards, complete with new hotness like Darknight Parshath and Escape from the Dark Dimension. If you’ve been ogling The Dark Creator and want to see what it makes possible, check out this article.
Curtis Schultz is back this week with even more info on the damage step, as he cleans up a few last details to help you master this tricky part your duels. The Six Samurai, Reflect Bounder, and flip effects are dealt with in this installment of Duel Academy, and if you’re a tournament player who attends even just locals on a regular basis, this article is a definite must-read.
Exodia made a splash in Orlando, thanks to the skillful play and deckbuilding of Adam Thomas. This Thursday, Matt Murphy tries his hand at fixing up an Exodia deck in The Apotheosis, with some results to be remembered. For everyone who has wanted to see Matt take on a more off-the-wall deck, this is the article you’ve waited for!
This Friday in The Practical Duelist, Bryan Camareno looks at how the past meets the present in Phantom Darkness. This new set has sent duelists scrambling for a plethora of older cards that become far better with all the new support for Dark monsters, and Bryan’s going to show you some of the best old-school cards to use with your new Sneak Preview pulls.
Saturday, Matt Peddle hoists Justin Trias into The Champions to look at Trias’s Baboon Burn (Baburn!) deck that set trends at Shonen Jump San Mateo. While Trias put for the big tournament showing, it’s actually a build played by Peddle’s teammate Dale Bellido that’s been emulated across the globe and taken repeated European and Australian events, so Matt’s insight into Trias’s deck should be exceptionally interesting.
Finally, Ryan Murphy takes the remove-from-game concept out of the Advanced format and tries it in Traditional, posing an interesting counter for the format’s nigh-endless number of Chaos decks. Can a remove-from-game strategy really dominate in the land of Chaos Emperor Dragon and Black Luster Soldier? Ryan thinks so, so hit us up on Sunday to find out why.
And that’s it for this week! See you in another seven days, and thanks for reading Metagame.com!
—Jason Grabher-Meyer
Contributing Editor, Metagame.com