It’s September 5th, and the new Advanced format is well underway! The shackles of Chaos Sorcerer have been cast off the collective limbs of the deck-building community, and every serious duelist across the globe is getting pumped to see what decks make it big at the format’s first Shonen Jump Championship!
Shonen Jump Championship Boston Looms Imminent
I’ll admit it—I’m pretty excited to have the TCG equivalent of courtside seats to what’s shaping up to be the most thrilling SJC of the year. With a huge dose of creativity being shown at SJC Hamilton just nine days ago, the stage is set for innovation at the U-Mass Boston Campus Center.
As debates rage on in online communities, every duelist planning to attend has a silver bullet up his or her sleeve. In a format that is so wide open, virtually anything could dominate, and predictions are hard to make. Will Machine OTK with Chimeratech Overdragon prove to be as good as some predict? Will Monarchs rise to the top of the format yet again, or will Warrior Toolbox re-emerge as the victor? It’s hard to say, because so many new decks are doing well in local level and regional competitions. Beasts, Macro Cosmos, Counter Fairy, Water Control, and plenty of other decks seem viable, and we won’t know what will happen until the dust settles in Boston.
You’ll know which new strategies reign supreme the moment we do, because Metagame.com will be live from Boston with extended coverage! Decks, tech, and feature matches will be the order of the day, while Julia Hedberg brings you the interviews, stories, photo coverage, and savage scrubbings that you love to see. It all kicks off at 10:45 AM, Saturday, September 16th. You can find all the event details at the official tournament listing and the Premier Tournament Organizer’s website. Show up, throw down, and be a part of the new era of dueling!
2006 Collector’s Tins in Stores this Week
You waited for it, and now it’s available: the best spread of Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG Collector’s Tins ever hits store shelves across North America this week, and the first wave of tins has some of the most anticipated reprints of all time.
Elemental Hero Neos, Raviel, Lord of Phantasms, and, of course, Cyber Dragon will now be available in a promo-only secret rare form, and each tin comes packed with an assortment of the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG’s most recent boosters. Each contains one booster of Elemental Energy, Shadow of Infinity, and Enemy of Justice, plus two packs of Cybernetic Revolution. These are going to sell out fast, so be sure to hit up your local hobby stores and mass-market retailers to ensure that other duel fans don’t beat you to the punch.
Elemental Hero Neos Week on Metagame.com
Want to get your hands on one of the new tins for free? The latest tin to be revealed is Elemental Hero Neos, who makes his television debut in North America today on Yu-Gi-Oh! GX! Neos is a boon to anyone who’s ever tried to play a tournament-level Elemental Hero deck, and to celebrate the arrival of Jaden’s best monster yet, we’re going to give you a chance to win a brand spanking new 2006 Collector’s Tin. Because we’re cool like that. Click on over to Metagame’s Neos Tin Giveaway for more details!
Also today, Mike Rosenberg will show you the power of Brain Control in a format where Snatch Steal has been forbidden. With the proper combos, Brain Control can turn virtually any situation against your opponent and leave you with a permanent advantage for the duration of the duel, and Mike is going to show you how to pull off some awesome tricks. As an added bonus, he’s even got a deck list to show you how to destroy opponents by running three. Brain Control has never been easier to get your hands on, and it’s never been more powerful either.
On Tuesday, our resident Elemental Hero expert will show you how to unleash the full potential of Elemental Hero Neos. Jerome McHale will share his latest HERO Flash!! build, a deck he calls Flash!!Flood, and show you how Elemental Hero Neos finally brings the Heroes into top fighting form. Free 2500 ATK beat sticks? Piercing damage, unparalleled control of the opponent’s back row, and wicked fusions? This deck is an Elemental Hero fan’s dream come true.
I’ll follow up on Wednesday by taking a similar deck in a very different direction. The fact that Elemental Hero Neos is a normal monster opens up more doors than one might think, and I’m going to delve into the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG’s past to dust off one of my favorite cards of all time. The result is a face-smashing aggression machine that I call Discard Neos Craziness, and it’s packed with synergies you won’t see coming.
Thursday, Curtis Schultz is back to look at some of Aster Phoenix’s biggest guns. The Destiny Heroes got a massive boost out of Power of the Duelist, and Curtis is going to show you the ins and outs of some of their best monsters. Destiny Hero - Dogma, Destiny Hero - Dasher, and Destiny Hero - Double Dude get the full treatment this week in Curtis’s Duel Academy. If you’re thinking of running even one of these monsters, check out Curtis’s article and know all the important rulings before you do.
Julia Hedberg finishes up her two-part cheat sheet on cards compatible with Return from the Different Dimension on Friday. This week’s selection is a blend of monsters, spells, and traps, many of which might be collecting dust in your binder right this minute. Bust out the shoeboxes under your bed, because Julia’s going to demonstrate the unique advantages that each of these cards offers to a Return duelist.
Anthony Alvarado made waves at last weekend’s SJC Hamilton by breaking his streak of cookie cutter deck usage with something totally new. Matt Peddle dissects his deck this weekend, giving you an in-depth look at the strategies and tactics that brought the Big Shark to his fourth Shonen Jump Championship Top 8.
Finally, Simon Sangpukdee rounds out the week with another article on Elemental Hero Neos. Simon scoured the game’s history to find all the cards that offer combo potential with the baddest Elemental Hero ever, and some of his top picks might surprise you. Looking to create your own unique strategy for Neos? Simon offers plenty of building blocks to get you started.
That’s it for the next seven days, but stay tuned to Metagame over the coming weeks as we take things up a notch. More contests, more columns, more interviews, and a certain mad scientist deck builder await loyal readers this September. As the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG continues to grow, we will too, and you won’t want to miss a second of what we have in store.
It’s going to be an exciting month.
—Jason Grabher-Meyer
Content Coordinator, Metagame.com