It’s Monday, January 29th, and less than 24 hours have passed since the surprising events of Shonen Jump Championship Orlando.

Paul Lyn Wins Shonen Jump Championship Orlando

While everyone was busy teching against Gadgets, Chimeratech Overdragon decks carried four competitors to Top 8 finishes at the SJC this past weekend. Three duelists from Team Rampage made it to Day 2 thanks to a speed-centric build but, in the end, all three lost out in the quarterfinals. Paul Lyn’s slower version, which relied on Ancient Gear Drill to search out cards like Dimension Fusion and Overload Fusion, ended up walking away with the entire tournament, a definite surprise.

Though fewer Gadget decks materialized than expected, and they were teched against to incredible degrees, they still managed to take third and fourth place in the hands of Chris Evans and John Brewer. Both used 45 card versions, making Fifth Gadget the Gadget build to beat in the coming weeks.

Want to know how it all went down? You can check out all the coverage from the tournament right here on Metagame.

New Duelist Packs Hit Stores Next Week

The two new expansion sets, Duelist Pack — Jaden 2 and Duelist Pack — Aster Phoenix will start arriving in stores on February 7th. While the previous Duelist Packs were a hit with collectors and GX fans, these two new sets include a lot of playable cards that serious duelists are going to be interested in as well.

In Aster’s Duelist Pack some of the highlights include Destiny Hero — Malicious and Destiny Draw. Malicious is a pint-sized terror with low ATK and DEF, but his effect makes him a real keeper: when he’s in the graveyard you can remove him from play to special summon another copy of Malicious from your deck. He’s tribute bait, a free chump blocker, and he loads your removed-from-play pile. Destiny Draw is a spell that lets you discard a Destiny Hero monster to draw two cards. It’s an even exchange in terms of hand presence, but if you discard something like Destiny Hero — Dasher or Destiny Hero — Malicious, you’re really gaining a valuable edge over your opponent. It’s like a miniature Graceful Charity for Destiny Heroes.

My favorite card from Jaden’s encore set is Card Trooper, an Earth attribute Machine-type with 400 ATK. It’s kind of like Bazoo the Soul-Eater, in that you can send up to three cards per turn from the top of your deck to increase its ATK by 500 for each card you get rid of. The boost only lasts until the end of your turn, but it’s got part of Cyber Phoenix’s effect grafted onto it: if it’s ever destroyed and sent to the graveyard you get to draw a card. In fact, it’s even better than Cyber Phoenix, because while Phoenix must be destroyed by battle, Card Trooper gets its draw even if its destroyed by an effect. Cool stuff.

Those are just some of the great new cards you’ll find in the two new Duelist Packs: there are a lot of great reprints, too. Just like the previous Duelist Packs, these will feature five cards per booster and will be priced lower than normal, making them an affordable opportunity to get your hands on some great cards. Those will start appearing in stores next Wednesday.

This Week on Metagame.com

Mike Rosenberg starts us off this week with an in-depth look at Lightning Vortex, a card that saw plenty of play in Shonen Jump Championship Orlando. Vortex is both a powerful pick in Gadget decks, as well as a strong piece of tech against Gadgets, allowing a duelist to quickly clear the field and create offensive openings. Mike’s going to show you all the ins and outs of this on-again off-again spell card today, so click on over and check it out.

Tomorrow, Jerome McHale follows hot on the heels of Paul Lyn’s success with Ancient Gears and shows you his Dr. Crowler deck. Can a character-themed deck that’s true to the GX animated series win in real life? Jerome thinks so, and you might too after you see what the deck can do.

Also on Tuesday, The School of Duel is open for business. While the last School of Duel article revolved around playing with Gadgets, this one is about playing against them. Jerome discusses tactics, strategic tech picks, and the anti-Gadget measures that pass and fail his rigorous standards.

A day later, I fix up a Phoenix / Zombie deck, an archetype that I believe is ready for a comeback. Cuing off of the success of Andrew Novoa this past weekend, I put my own spin on the time-honored theme to try and make it viable for the new metagame here in North America.

Did you go to McDonald’s to stock up on promos? I did — I literally have a huge sack of Happy Meal toys sitting in my bedroom as we speak. If you’re like me, you’ve probably got some interesting new cards you might like to play, and Curtis Schultz has you covered. This week’s Duel Academy covers important rulings on The Flute of Summoning Kuriboh and Elemental Hero Electrum, so if you want to use either, be sure to read this article first.

On Friday you get your bi-weekly double dose of Julia Hedberg, as she delivers Solid Ground and Agents of Judgment. This week, Solid Ground is all about how to support (and not frighten away) new players in your local area. Without fresh blood your local tournaments will inevitably die out, so this is a really important concept to be good at. More players means more challenges, bigger turnouts and bigger prizes.

Agents of Judgment discusses player management, a concept that still eludes many judges simply due to the lack of published resources on the topic. Well, now you’ve got a reference, as Julia describes what player management is and how you can be successful at it. This one’s a must-read for anybody who judges tournaments.

Finally, on Saturday, Matt Peddle will take a look at the deck Mike Gonzalez ran at Shonen Jump Championship Austin. Consistency was the key to Gonzalez’s strategy, and an insight into ongoing metagame trends of the time led him to a very respectable finish. Matt will draw it all together by showing you what you can learn from Gonzalez’s example.

That’s it for this week, but head on back a week from today for more news in the world of dueling!

-Jason Grabher-Meyer