Shonen Jump Championship Columbus Just Days Away
SJC action returns to the Franklin County Veterans Memorial Center on the 24th of this month, and hundreds of North America’s best are sure to be in attendance!
Ohio Shonen Jumps are always something special. In 2005, a whopping 722 duelists came together to throw down in one of the largest Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG tournaments of all time. The record was established for the largest SJC, and it remained unbroken for a year and a half. Then, SJC Columbus 2006 launched Shrink as the new prize card, and started the winning streak of three-time Shonen Jump Champion Emon Ghaneian. Now a brand new Advanced format, the Top 16 Day 2 system, and Crush Card Virus are going to make this year’s event another tournament for the ages.
The format is wide open. While Emon’s victory in Houston with Card Trooper/Bazoo Return is sure to set some trends, we are miles away from having a decisively dominant deck in North America. Houston proved that Diamond Dude Turbo, Warrior Toolbox, Six Samurai, Dimensional Fissure, and an array of Monarch and Gadget variants are all viable, and that list might grow even longer in Columbus. Notable duelists continue to experiment with new decks made possible by Strike of Neos, and at least one celebrated deck builder has already shown us a rather surprising strategy he’ll be using.
The turnout should be amazing. With two Crush Cards won at Shonen Jump Championship Houston, Team Overdose seems like a surefire bet to be in competition. But with Ohio so accessible from all sides of the country—and with the new Top 16 format keeping Day 2 dreams alive—virtually anyone could show up and make an impact.
If you’re interested in heading out to compete, but haven’t had the chance yet to make your travel arrangements, you can find all the information you need right here at the official event listing. This one might be even bigger than SJC Philadelphia, so be there and be part of dueling history!
This Week on Metagame.com
This time around, we kick off our week with an article from our resident mad genius, Vincent Tundo. His mission? To bring you a whole new perspective on Zombies thanks to one of the game’s most underrated trap cards. If you’re looking for one of those decks that your opponent just won’t know how to play against, you should definitely click on over.
Also today, Mike Rosenberg will examine one of the hottest new cards in the game: Card Trooper. Played in half of the Top 8 decks from SJC Houston, this little Machine is the epitome of versatility, and Mike’s going to show you some of the play trends that make it such a great pick for the current environment.
With the Strike of Neos Special Edition just around the corner, Jerome McHale is going to try his hand at creating an all-new deck built around it. Sure, you’ve seen Airknight Parshath/Don Zaloog decks that use Shrink, but this time it’s a pair of monsters from Strike of Neos that tie it all together. The result is a deck that can shut down more than half of the cards in your opponent’s deck and dominate in battle. Head on back tomorrow to see what Jerome’s cooked up.
On Wednesday, the only Metagame.com staff member to hold a PhD in dueling takes on the task of fixing up an Amazoness deck! We may have never actually seen his degree, but the results speak for themselves as Crellian Vowler gets down to the barebones reasons to run these womanly warriors. Don’t think an Amazoness deck can be competitive? You might reconsider after you see what Vowler’s put together.
Thursday, Curtis Schultz swings open the doors to his Duel Academy to give you part one of his series on Six Samurai. Never before has a new family of monsters exploded out of the gates with such force, but the Samurais are surrounded by some intriguing rulings you’ll need to be aware of. This week, Curtis gives you an in-depth look at the team-up requirement that unleashes the power of each Samurai monster, and investigates one of their strongest shared abilities: self-sacrifice.
You get two back-to-back articles from Julia Hedberg this Friday, and the first is a follow-up to last week’s Solid Ground. A week ago Julia showed you some of the pitfalls that you can identify when analyzing your losses, and now she’s back to complete the list. She’ll cover underestimation, distraction, and a bunch of other factors that could be detracting from your win ratio. Read them, know them, and then don’t do them. Three easy steps to improving your game!
Then in Agents of Judgment, she’ll give you judges out there another convenient tool for organizing yourself. This week’s article is a night-before checklist to help you get ready for big events, so if you’re the kind of judge who goes on auto-pilot or tends to forget things, you’ll definitely want to bookmark this one. Make your event prep easier, and give this one a read.
Adam Corn made serious waves at Houston when he played his way to the Top 8 with a deck that combined both Monarchs and Gadgets. How did he do it, and more importantly, why? Matt Peddle is on hand this Saturday to help you understand Corn’s success, and he’ll outline the factors that led Corn to Day 2 glory with an innovative hybrid.
Jae Kim finishes up the deck he started working on last week, this time adding spell and trap cards to the mix. It’s an interesting perspective piece that shows you what an experienced duelist thinks about when approaching a new format, and comparing Jae’s comments and thoughts to your own is a cool exercise. In addition, it’s got a completed deck list that you might want to add to your gauntlet! Hit it up this Sunday for all the details.
That’s it for this week, but be sure to join us in another seven days as we count down to Shonen Jump Championship Columbus!