I can say with absolute certainty that the one thing that everybody is going to want to know about is how the Advanced Ritual Art/Demise, King of Armageddon OTK decks are fairing. The deck’s become somewhat of an internet phenomenon, being hyped to the point where certain groups of players are talking about forbidding it from online leagues and casual games. Personally, I don’t think the deck is anywhere near as good as these people fear it to be. Well, not the version they’re talking about anyway. The build that’s getting all the buzz runs a paltry 5 or 6 normal monsters, all Insects. That’s either 3 Insect Knight and 3 Neo Bug or 3 of the big one and 2 of the not-so-big one. After Ritual Art hits the field, the Insects are used to feed Doom Dozer. Long story short, a bunch of cards get blown away and either Doom Dozer or a Cyber Twin Dragon with a Megamorph finish things off. To be honest, the Doom Dozer variant isn’t very good. I did some testing with a lot of the Dozer variants that were sent to me in the week or so leading up to the event, and none of them were able to stand up to any of my regular decks. Rumor has it, however, that Vincent Tundo, rogue deckbuilder extraordinaire, has an excellent build of Demise OTK. Hopefully we’ll see more of it later on today.

Demise aside, most people have predicted Trooper Return, as seen at SJC Houston, to be the deck to beat today. Regardless of the fact that it won the last SJC, Trooper Return is just an all-around powerful deck. It runs a plethora of the most powerful cards in the game, from the classic Return from the Different Dimension all the way to the brand new Card Trooper. I’d certainly agree that Trooper Return is going to be a popular deck today, but I think it’s not going to see the kind of play that it would if Card Trooper was easier to come by. As an ultra rare in the new Duelist Pack — Jaden Yuki 2, Trooper is already a tough find but, considering that the secondary market value of the card in Houston was regularly over 65$ before Emon won the Jump, I shudder to think of what it’s at now. Also, regarding the outcome of the last SJC, I would look to Diamond Dude Turbo to be out in force today as well. Again, not in the numbers that it would get if many of its key components weren’t hard to find ultra rares, but I suspect that anyone who was really dedicated to playing the deck today found a way to get the cards.

I have yet to see anyone packing a Six Samurai build today, which makes me sad, but I have seen Dimensional Fissure toolbox. In my experience, Dimensional Fissure toolbox has an excellent matchup against the Demise decks, and a lot of Demise players may be taken out in the early rounds due to coming up against this bad matchup that the Demise players likely didn’t test for. If Demise can make it through the first rounds, however, it’s got a great shot at appearing in the playoffs tomorrow. It’s basically up to the pairings at this point, but I must say that the idea of Ritual decks becoming a mainstay of the tournament scene excites me. All in all, SJC Columbus is shaping up to be an excellent event, and it hasn’t even started yet! Make sure you keep a browser up and running on Metagame.com, because this is only the beginning. SJC Columbus is about to start, and it’s going to be another Jump to remember!