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It’s February 27, and after a ten-week off-season, the Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game has yet another Shonen Jump Champion!

Team Rampage’s Christopher Flores Wins Shonen Jump Durham!

A sea of almost 500 duelists boiled down to a final two, when Team Rampage’s Christopher Flores took on Jason Holloway from Team Outphase. With Fili Luna having won Shonen Jump San Francisco flying the Outphase flag in December, it looked as if the team would pick up back-to-back Championship titles. But after going through Robert Ackermon and Jerry Wang, Flores was determined to give him the fight of his life. In a game 3 finale that came down to topdecking, Flores managed to peck away with Don Zaloog and Tsukuyomi, while Holloway drew dead cards and watched victory slip from his grasp.

That wasn’t the only story from Durham, though. Team Scoop and Team Superfriends each competed with their own take on a new deck theme,
but neither group managed to place a member into the Top 8. Based around the use of plenty of Monarchs, Chaos Sorcerers, and tempo-slowing flip effect monsters, the deck failed to dominate at Durham. However, once Treeborn Frog becomes legal for play in premiere events, this strong strategy could easily sit at the top of the tier 1 pile.

And tech? There was plenty. Check out the coverage and count how
many Top 8 decks were running Goldd, Wu-Lord of Dark World. You’ll
be surprised. Rush Recklessly, Deck Devastation Virus, and several other surprising picks all made respectable showings.

Relive the event through our extended tournament coverage, right here
on Metagame.com!

The Jaden and Chazz Duelist Packs have been flying off of shelves worldwide, and now the long-awaited Special Edition boxes are less than two weeks away. Sources have confirmed the official release date as March 8, which is just twelve days from now. Each box will contain three Jaden boosters, three Chazz boosters, and one of three exclusive promo cards. With the Special Edition release so close, it’s a wonder that the identities of the three promos have not yet been revealed, and as always, speculation has run wild through dueling communities. While some suspect reprints, others believe that Upper Deck Entertainment may use the Special Edition sets to add new Yu-Gi-Oh! GX monsters to the North American card pool.

In a related move, Upper Deck Entertainment and Konami have departed from the previous formula of reprints for the Shadow of Infinity Special Edition boxes. Information began to trickle in last week about the promo cards accompanying the upcoming Special Edition release, and have since been confirmed. Each Shadow of Infinity Special Edition box will include three boosters of Shadow of Infinity, as well as one of the following cards:

Previously, each of the first three cards was relatively difficult to get, especially for new duelists who didn’t have access to the promotions where they were available. The fourth card, Mesmeric Control, has never been distributed in North America. Once a European-only release, it has fantastic synergy with cards like Zero Gravity, Swords of Concealing Light, and the aforementioned Windstorm of Etaqua. Watch for it to be a big hit with stateside collectors, many of whom have been clamoring for a North American version of the card for ages.

Those who attended last weekend’s Shadow of Infinity Sneak Preview events may have noticed that their preview booklet contained some important information. Careful reading revealed that the upcoming Tournament Pack 8 set would contain reprints of popular monsters Mobius the Frost Monarch and Zaborg the Thunder Monarch. While Mobius was issued in non-holographic form in the Fury from the Deep Structure Deck, Zaborg the Thunder Monarch is a super rare in both of its expansions, which were Ancient Sanctuary and the recent Dark Revelation Vol. 2.

After the success of Zaborg the Thunder Monarch at Shonen Jump Championship Durham, a reprint of this card is sure to please competitive duelists.

Over the next week, 4Kids will be revealing new cards from the upcoming Enemy of Justice expansion. Though the new set doesn’t launch for months, and Shadow of Infinity is still in its release phase in many areas, you’ll get to check out a handful of cards from the summer release.

Check out the 4Kids Rise of the Sacred Beasts website here for daily Yu-Gi-Oh! GX info. While the precise date and time of the new set information’s posting is currently unknown, persistence is sure to pay off. Be sure to bookmark the site, and keep checking it out as the week proceeds. With a plethora of new Sacred Beast content popping up all the time, regular visits won’t be disappointing.

Mike Rosenberg begins your week today, investigating the potential of . Mike’s out to prove that this tricky trap is more than just card disadvantage and sub-par disruption, and he does a thorough job of detailing monsters that can work well with the Device’s effect. He’ll show you just how flexible it can be, demonstrating some veteran play maneuvers and even revealing some techniques that will let you gain card advantage despite the Device’s appearances. It’s a must-read for all you veteran duelists and creative deck builders!

Are you puzzled by monsters like Phantom Grass and Divine Dragon – Excelion? If you attended a Shadow of Infinity Sneak Preview event, you’ll know how great Disciple of the Forbidden Spell can be in Sealed Pack formats, but its Constructed potential might be a bit elusive. On Tuesday, kick back and let Jerome McHale show you his latest creation: a deck that uses Shadow of Infinity’s “Multiplicity” monsters and pushes them to their limits! A bunch of hot new cards combine with one underrated relic from the past to create a strategy that’s as viable as it is surprising. Jerome’s been on the cutting edge lately, taking on risky decks and striking gold every time, and this week is no exception!

Speaking of risky decks, be sure to swing by on Wednesday. I take on a challenge from a reader and put my nose to the grindstone as I try and fix up a monster-heavy Exodia build with only a single spell and a lone trap card. Can a 40-card deck really function with more than 35 monsters? Can a new Exodia strategy really be playable? After a lot of testing and a lot of failed attempts at fixing the deck, I think the answer is yes. Check out the article to see why!

No card in recent memory has been so packed with potential, so debated, so tempting, and . . . well, so darn confusing as Inferno Reckless Summon. A highlight card from Chazz’s Duelist Pack, Inferno can give incredible card advantage and astounding field presence in the right situation. But what are those situations, anyway? When can you use it, how can you get the most out of its effect, and what on earth happens if you activate it in response to the special summoning of Proto-Cyber Dragon? As always, Curtis Schultz has all the answers in his Thursday column, Duelist Academy. Inferno Reckless Summon could be the next big thing, and Curtis makes it easy to study up on all the important rulings.

Following the Duelist Pack theme, Julia Hedberg serves up back-to-back articles investigating all the new offerings in both the Jaden and Chazz packs. Though collectors have been clamoring for Jaden packs, Julia will show you serious duelists some slick uses for his new cards. Then, she’ll show you what all the fuss is about when it comes to Chazz’s set. Stuffed with some highly playable cards that have never been released before, the Chazz packs present some unique and skill-heavy spells and traps, as well as a hot new monster to boot! Julia will review them all, and believe me, there are some things in these articles that even the most skilled duelists probably won’t see coming.

This week in New Grounds, Jae Kim looks at yet another tempting deck theme that never quite made it out of the gates. The Archfiends were a highly anticipated set of monsters when they were released, but the complexity of some of the cards and the metagame as it stood made them unattractive to most competitors. Now, with a new Archfiend at their disposal and a new environment, this deck could make an
impact. Negating threats like Enemy Controller and Sakuretsu Armor, and punching out little jerks like Dekoichi and Magical Merchant, the Archfiends may just be on the verge of success. Check out Jae's article at the end of the week and see what he's created!

That’s it for this week! As always, thanks for reading. Be sure to come back every day for more of the best Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG articles out there. With the dust still settling from Shonen Jump Championship Durham, who knows where the game will be in just another seven days?