It’s Monday, September 18th, and the first Shonen Jump Championship of the new Advanced format has finally come and gone. We’ve got a brand new champ, and a brand new North American metagame!
Bobby Chambers Wins Shonen Jump Championship Boston
Duelists on-site at the U-Mass Campus Center in Boston, Massachusetts were stunned, as relative newcomer Bobby Chambers captured a to-the-wire victory over two-time SJC winner John Jensen. Jensen, the most recognized player on Team Nexus, was the smart-money bet once he reached the finals, but a mix of aggression, risk-taking, and well-planned plays led Chambers to decisive victories all weekend long.
The field was a mix of all sorts of decks, but at the end of the day the most dominant were beat-down, Monarchs, OTK, and Warrior toolbox. Still, now that a tentative metagame has been established, we’ll certainly see plenty of competitors trying to break it; Shonen Jump Championship Austin should be a scorcher.
Our congratulations go out to Bobby Chambers, the Shonen Jump Champion of Boston!
Yu-Gi-Oh! Mall Tour News
Good news for duelists across the US — the game we all love to play will be part of the upcoming Kids Time Extreme Mall Tour this fall! Starting at the end of September and running until December, the Yu-Gi-Oh! Mall Tour will give duel fans a chance to break out of their local metagame and meet other duelists from their region.
Attendees will be able to watch previews of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, compete against master duelists, peer at binders chock full of cards, and get advice on their decks. Cards from Power of the Duelist will be on display, and you’ll be able to win a booster of it yourself (for free no less!) by answering some Yu-Gi-Oh! trivia.
Each event is open from 1 to 5 PM on Saturday and Sunday, and there are stops in Texas, Arizona, California, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Georgia, New Jersey, and Florida. Head on over to this page at the official 4Kids Yu-Gi-Oh! website for more details, and to find a mall tour location near you.
Scapegoat Token Giveaway Later This Month
No mall tour in your area? No worries, because on September 30, Toys ‘R’ Us locations across the US will be giving away Sheep Token promo cards! Like the popular promos given out at Gen Con Indianapolis and Comic Con this past summer, these Token cards can be used as any Token you can generate. Unlike those tokens, which featured the red Sheep, these will be yellow, never before released in the US!
For event start times, contact your local Toys ‘R’ Us store. This is just a one-day event, so be sure not to miss your chance at this cool promo. Plus, attendees will also get collectable Yu-Gi-Oh! pins to boot. It’s a great chance to meet new duelists, and an awesome opportunity to grab some cool swag. Everybody likes free stuff, right?
This Week on Metagame.com
This week we start things off with a look at one of the best tech cards in the format. Fearing Cyber-Stein? Mike Rosenberg’s got you covered today as he looks at one of the most awesome side deck cards in the format. Mind Crush shuts down Stein eight ways from Sunday, and that’s just the beginning of what Mike is going to show you. Click on over and check it out!
Tomorrow, Jerome McHale will introduce a Wind Lock deck that controls the opponent’s spell and trap zone in order to generate cool effects. We showed you decks that focused on Sonic Shooter and Simorgh, Bird of Divinity a couple months ago, but now Jerome is taking on the challenge of building one for the new Advanced format.
On Wednesday, I’ll fix up a cool Monarch variant that exploits a plethora of Earth monsters. Nimble Momonga is just the beginning, as this deck piles on multiple copies of Giant Rat, Warrior Lady of the Wasteland, Hero Kid, and Gigantes to ensure that it’s always got plenty of tribute fodder. Will it work? Check out The Apotheosis on Wednesday and see if I can tweak this idea into competitive shape.
Then, speaking of challenges, Curtis Schultz kicks off part one of a multi-part series on one of the most complicated cards ever made. Appropriate can be exceptionally powerful, but it can also be amazingly confusing with some of the toughest timing rules out there. Curtis is going to show you the ropes this week, and demonstrate how you can make this tricky trap work to your benefit.
As Curtis starts his new series, Julia Hedberg finishes hers! Part two of the Solid Ground serial on Deck Devastation Virus draws the series to a close, showing you the best and the brightest Machines and Fiends suitable for use as tribute. Highlights include Snatch Steal on a stick, a big, forgotten, purple dude, and one of the newest, most impressive monsters from Power of the Duelist. Don’t miss it!
Jae Kim’s here on Saturday, keeping with the Destiny Hero theme he started last week. Destiny Hero — Dasher is the order of the day, yet another of Aster Phoenix’s signature monsters that makes big monsters all the more playable. There’s been a lot of hubbub about the potential for Dasher, but one of the big points of debate is what to run with it. You’ll see Jae Kim’s picks this weekend, complete with a ready-made deck list.
Finally, Matt Peddle will take a look back at Shonen Jump Championship Baltimore to analyze Chris Winkler’s Strike Ninja deck. Winkler put in an exceptionally respectable Top 4 finish with his Euro-American Ninja blend, and Matt’s going to take the deck apart to show you what makes it such great inspiration for the current Advanced list. What is it about Strike Ninja that makes it so good, and what was important about Winkler’s build in particular? Find out on Sunday.
That’s the lineup for this week, so be sure to hit us up every day for more of the best articles in dueling. As always, thanks for reading Metagame!
—Jason Grabher-Meyer
Content Coordinator, Metagame.com