This round’s feature match pits two-time Gameboy Advance Yu-Gi-Oh! National Champion and member of Team All-American, Patrick Dicks, against the relatively unknown Ian Slobodianock. Ian took down Matt Peddle in the previous round and is looking to cap things off by making his first day 2 appearance.

Ian won the opening roll (using the strangest dice I’ve ever seen) and opted to start things off. He did so with a set to each zone and passed over to Dicks who summoned Manju of the Ten Thousand Hands to fetch . . . Demise, King of Armageddon. For those of you at home, that means I’ve managed to hit five Demise OTK decks out of 6 feature matches thus far. Brutal. Not as brutal as playing against them though, and Dicks set a spell or trap before passing back to Ian. He simply passed his turn back to Dicks who drew into Dimension Fusion. He needed a Doom Dozer to complete the combo, and it just wasn’t showing up.

Ian activated Future Fusion, dropping 2 Cyber Dragons, Card Trooper, Jinzo, Dekoichi the Battlechanted Locomotive, and 2 Cyber Phoenixes into his graveyard to set up for Chimeratech Overdragon. He then set a monster and passed back to Dicks who activated Magical Mallet, choosing to shuffle 3 cards back into his deck. He picked two of the three (Dimension Fusion and Senju of the Thousand Hands) right back up, but he also scored a second Advanced Ritual Art. He summoned Senju to fetch out a second Demise to go with the Art and ended his turn. One standby had passed for Future Fusion, and Dicks flipped Dekoichi the Battlechanted Locomotive to draw a card. He then flipped up Gravekeeper’s Spy to bring out a second Spy in attack position. The Spies couldn’t take down either of the multi-armed menaces, but Skull Lair could! Ian removed his Cyber Phoenixes along with Dekoichi and a Cyber Dragon to destroy one searcher then summoned Bazoo the Soul-Eater, declining to activate the monkey’s effect. Threatening Roar stopped his battle phase cold, however, and play passed back to Patrick. He activated Advanced Ritual Art sending a pair of Insect Knights to the graveyard to summon Demise and blow up everything else on the field. He then activated the second Art for another Demise! He then showed Ian the Metamorphosis, and game 1 was over!

Ian dove right into his side deck between games, seemingly knowing exactly what he needed to do to beat this deck. It was likely that he had needed to do so multiple times before in the tournament, due to the high number of Demise decks that have been seeing play today, so at this point it would be unwise to count him out of the match. Remember from the earlier matches that Demise almost always won game 1 and then failed or got beat down by side deck cards in the next two. Demise OTK was 1-3 for the day in feature matches, something that at the very least was in the back of my mind as the players completed their side decking.

Ian started game 2 out with a set to each zone while Patrick summoned Sonic Bird. Pulling the Rug negated its effect and blew it away, however, and Dicks was forced to pass. Magical Merchant was flipped next turn on Ian’s side of the field dropping a Cyber Dragon and a Snipe Hunter before revealing Call of the Haunted. Ian then summoned Card Trooper, losing Heavy Storm, Dimension Fusion, and Dekoichi the Battlechanted Locomotive off the top before attacking for 2100, setting a pair of spells or traps, and passing. This game was already looking not so good for Patrick as he was stuck with a pair of Doom Dozers and a Demise he couldn’t play yet. He did have Magical Mallet though, and he activated it, shuffling two cards back into his deck.

Patrick drew another Mallet and Manju of the Ten Thousand Hands off of the Mallet. He summoned Manju and pulled Advanced Ritual Art out of his deck. Ian seemed to contemplate a response, but decided against it. Art hit the field, but Ian had no response for it. A pair of Insect Knights was sent to the graveyard to pay for Demise’s grand appearance, but once it hit the field Ian wanted to activate Solemn Judgment to block its summon! No dice on that one unfortunately, as head judge Jeff had to come over and explain why you can’t negate the summon of a monster by Advanced Ritual Art. It was a game-losing misplay, as, after Demise cleared the field, Patrick dropped Doom Dozer and Megamorph to claim the match, 2-0!