One of the biggest Shonen Jump Championships of all time took place this weekend, and the dueling world has a brand new Champion!
Michael Songloke Wins Shonen Jump Championship Anaheim!
A star-studded field of 670 duelists boiled down to a final sixteen over the course of ten long rounds this past Saturday. Though Day 2 featured repeated Top 8 competitors like Theeresak Poonsombat, Emon Ghaneian, and Hooman Farahbakush, it was an under-the-radar duelist who took home the gold!
Michael Songloke entered Day 2 at fifteenth place, paired against Shonen Jump Champ Hooman Farahbakush. He then took down David Rodriguez and Brian Hanley in a pair of back-to-back Demise OTK mirror matches before defeating the DDT-wielding Chris Bowling to win the Championship.
Overall, the Top 8 featured three Demise OTK decks, one Recruiter, one Beatdown, one Diamond Dude Turbo (with The Creator!), Monarchs, and a very unique Destiny Hero deck played by Theeresak Poonsombat. If you want to see how it all went down but missed the live coverage, you can catch all the deck profiles, commentary, and feature matches right here on Metagame.com!
Yu-Gi-Oh! Wins Scrye Magazine’s All-Time Favorite Collectible Game
Gaming periodical Scrye magazine released its yearly awards of recognition in this month’s issue, and lo and behold, the Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game won the year’s top honor! “All-Time Favorite Collectible Game,” both cards and minis, was given to our favorite TCG. The article included high praise recognizing recent milestones the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG achieved:
“The big question, as we look to the future, is whether new games will still be going strong in five years; only a fraction of the collectible games released have reached that anniversary—in fact, Yu-Gi-Oh’s English-language run reached that goal earlier this year.”
The awards are based off of reader votes, so big ups to everyone who supported Yu-Gi-Oh!
Force of the Breaker This Weekend!
As a friendly reminder, Force of the Breaker Sneak Previews are this weekend! We’ll be spending the next week showing off even more cards from this awesome new set, and if you want to be amongst the first to crack some boosters you’ll want to find a Sneak Preview in your area and throw down!
Sneak Preview weekends challenge you to make decks from nothing but all-new boosters! If you duel your way to victory in tournament or free-play formats, you can win even more Force of the Breaker packs. A bit of luck could net you exclusive swag like commemorative t-shirts, and every duelist in attendance receives a copy of the brand new never-before-seen promo card, Volcanic Rocket. Sneak Previews are some of the most fun you’ll ever have, and Force of the Breaker is going to have a huge impact on the tournament scene—get your hands on all the hottest new cards before your rivals do, and have a blast doing it!
Sneak Previews Continue On Metagame.Com
Today, Mike Rosenberg investigates one of the most hyped-up cards in Force of the Breaker. It’s called Sky Scourge Norleras, and it’s the successor to Chaos Emperor Dragon - Envoy of the End! Some duelists actually believe it to be superior to the Dragon, and Mike is going to show you why.
Jae Kim will take tomorrow to show you another one of the set’s signature field search monsters—Harpie’s Queen! The Queen is inarguably the most versatile field searcher in the set, because she has an added effect that takes Harpie decks to incredible new heights. Don’t believe me? Jae Kim will illustrate what makes Harpie Queen the perfect new addition to the Harpie ranks!
On Wednesday, Matt Peddle will introduce what is definitely the set’s most anticipated card for many duelists—Raiza the Storm Monarch! The newest Monarch to hit the scene might also be the deadliest one ever, and Matt’s going to outline all the reasons why Raiza will see competitive play the moment it’s available.
Julia Hedberg is back on Thursday to put the cherry on our Crystal Beast sundae! Crystal Beast Ruby Carbuncle and Crystal Promise are going to be two of the most feared cards in Crystal Beast decks, and together they’re one of its best combos. Want to know what the little gem-cat does, and why she’s so powerful? Julia will tell all, and you’ll never look at Crystal Beasts the same way.
Curtis Schultz will also be on deck this Thursday, back with a look at important rulings for some of the game’s best Pyro monsters. This monster type is going to get a lot of attention thanks to Force of the Breaker, so it’s a great time to brush up on your card knowledge!
Finally, Jerome McHale will round out our week on Friday with an insider look at the new Sneak Preview promo, Volcanic Rocket! A world-exclusive that was never printed before in Japan, it’s a lynchpin addition to the Volcanic theme you’ll see in Force of the Breaker. Jerome will detail the cards Rocket supports too, so get ready for one last look at a ton of new cards the night before Sneak Preview weekends begin!
That’ll be all for this week, but we’ll be back in another seven days with a bunch of new additions to the site. In the meantime, enjoy your local Sneak Preview!