Extended Coverage for Shonen Jump Championship Durham

After almost ten weeks of tension and secrecy, Shonen Jump Championship competition returns to Yu-Gi-Oh!

Shonen Jump Championship Durham takes place this weekend, and after two and a half months of silence, the best of the best are ready to show off the fruits of their labors. Weeks upon weeks of deck testing, tech research, and practice will pay off for the hundreds of duelists attending, and all the questions and speculation will be answered.

Shonen Jump Chicago champ Dale Bellido has announced that Team Superfriends will be in attendance, looking to score another impressive Top 8 showing and another championship win. At the same time, top players from Team Comic Odyssey will be coming off the bench, and plenty of local teams will be aiming to show proven duelists what they’re made of.

The metagame? A mystery. Shonen Jump San Francisco’s breakout decks raised more questions than answers, and for the first time in memory, there are easily half a dozen tier-1 decks in the Advanced format. Strike Ninja, Return variants, Warrior, Chaos, Soul Control, and Flip-Flop Control have all received regard as top picks. Out of the bunch, no one deck appears to be dominant.

Of course, that will change at Durham.

Julia Hedberg is back by popular demand, providing an extension of our usual event coverage in the form of blog-format updates. While I’ll still be doing in-depth interviews, deck profiles, tech updates, and match coverage, Julia will be bringing you a rapid-fire series of stories on duelists, teams, single cards, side events, and, well . . . anything and everything! For those of you who hit that refresh button every ten minutes, you’ll have a constant stream of new content to sink your teeth into.

Shonen Jump Championship Durham is going to be one for the ages, and Metagame.com will be there to take you to the center of the action. Be up bright and early, because pre-game coverage begins Saturday morning!

This Week on Metagame.com

It’s another huge week packed with content here at Metagame.com, as we bring you your regularly scheduled articles, plus a plethora of extra content!

First up, Mike Rosenberg investigates the current status of Scapegoat in the Advanced environment. Once the defining card of the format, the mighty have most definitely fallen, but exactly how far? Mike proposes that perhaps it hasn’t slipped as far as one might think, looking at the versatility of quick-play spells, the best ways to use Sheep tokens, and some cool combos you may have never considered!

Then, Jerome McHale sets his sights on one of the game’s most promising new archetypes—Insects! The Shadow of Infinity previews have come and gone, and the Insect hordes have a swarm of new support cards. Jerome puts them to the test, creating a deck that combines old favorites like 4-Starred Ladybug of Doom with new cards like Doom Dozer. The result is an aggressive strategy that plays out differently in each segment of the duel. If you’re looking to get an edge on your competition before Shadow of Infinity officially hits store shelves, this one’s a must-read.

On Wednesday, I take a look at a reader-submitted deck called “Rusty Toolbox.” With Blast with Chain getting so much attention as of late, plenty of duelists have submitted Blast decks to me over the past few weeks. This one employs Gearfried the Iron Knight for the purpose of the classic Gearfried / Blast with Chain combo, but also busts out some crazy tech to complement the theme. Iron Blacksmith Kotetsu, Smoke Grenade of the Thief, and more are used to create an off-the-wall Warrior variant that’s jam-packed with tricks.

Curtis Schultz continues his popular series of Insect-centric Duelist Academy articles on Thursday. Up at bat this time are four new cards from Shadow of Infinity! Anteatereatingant, Parasitic Ticky, Silent Insect, and Chainsaw Insect are all highlighted this week, and as usual, Curtis’s focus rests on answering those tough rulings questions you might have run into at the Sneak Previews. What happens if Chainsaw Insect attacks your opponent directly? How does Skill Drain interact with Silent Insect? Curtis answers all later this week.

Serious duelists are turning their creative brainpower towards some of the new cards from Chazz’s Duelist Pack, and they’re the focus of Julia Hedberg’s Solid Ground on Friday. She investigates Magical Mallet, Grave of Enkindling, and more in order to find innovative uses for these hot new additions to the game. If you’ve picked up these new cards and seen potential, but you haven’t quite come up with any ideas yet, you’ll definitely want to check out this cool article. Whether you’re a new player or a seasoned veteran, you’ll want to check out Solid Ground!

Also this week, I’ll look at the state of the game leading up to Shonen Jump Championship Durham. I catalog the driving forces behind Shonen Jump Championship Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, and dissect each one. The result is an in-depth profile of the current format and how it grew, detailing the development of tempo trends, tech, and the key innovations that have driven top-tier play. If you’ve ever wondered why 1-for-1 trades are now such a big deal, or just why Return decks won the day at Los Angeles but faltered in San Francisco, this article has the answers and high-level game theory you’ve been looking for.

That rascally Brit Tim Willoughby will also pop up some time over the next seven days, bringing you a cool Deck Out build he calls Ghandipants. For all you readers who also play Vs. System, you’re already well-schooled in what to expect from Mr. Willoughby. For those who are unfamiliar with his writing, get ready for one of the most unique perspectives in the TCG world today, brimming with wit, cheek, and hardcore expertise. If you’ve been looking for a viable, original deck to play in serious competition, or if you just want a good laugh, don’t miss this must-see article!

Plus, I’ll sit down to learn more about the 2005 National Champion . . . of New Zealand! Cindie Uddstrom was one of the standout duelists of last summer’s World Championships, but was overshadowed by more widely publicized success stories like Jorge Fabian Pina Lizarraga’s Deck Out deck. Armed with an innovative Burn build that took her to a Top 16 finish, Cindie’s a remarkable competitor for a wide array of reasons, and this week we’ll set things right as we give her some of the exposure she deserves. As an added bonus, I’ll take a look at the deck list she took to Worlds, and examine why it was such a good pick for the Thousand-Eyes Restrict-crammed metagame.

Whew! Normally that would be all that we could pack into a single seven days, but remember that Shonen Jump Championship Durham coverage starts Saturday morning! The best of the best will duke it out in North Carolina, and surprises are sure to run rampant. With extended coverage, we’ll be churning out exciting articles one after the other, so be sure to lock your door and get ready with that refresh button!

In seven days we’ll have a new Shonen Jump Champion!

-Jason Grabher-Meyer

Contributing Editor, Metagame.com