It’s Monday, May 12, 2008, and after a star-studded showdown in Nashville, we’ve got a brand new Shonen Jump Champion.
Jason Holloway Wins Shonen Jump Championship Nashville!
For years now, Jason Holloway has been a Shonen Jump Championship regular. Once a star member of Team Outphase, he’s now a top duelist for Team YugiohETC. After attending 
countless Shonen Jumps, he’s finally earned the title of Champion!
Day 2 was no picnic, as Holloway battled through several matches where the odds didn’t seem to be in his favor. Barely making it to Day 2 in sixteenth place, he had to face off against Cesar Gonzalez, Shonen Jump Champion and number-one ranked player in the Swiss rounds. Surprisingly, Holloway swiftly dispatched Gonzalez and scored two straight wins, then he did the same to Hugo Adame in the Top 8. Adame’s high-defense, high-control Dark Armed Dragon build was just no match for Holloway.
From there, Holloway narrowly defeated his one-time teammate—and three-time Shonen Jump Champion—Fili Luna. That left him to face Jerry Wang in the finals. In a match where both duelists were hampered by poor opening hands and draws, Holloway lost the first duel, but he pulled through to win the final two. The result? We have a new Shonen Jump Champion!
May is a huge month for dueling, and we’ll see Light of Destruction’s Shonen Jump Championship debut less than two weeks from today. Dark Armed Dragon will take on Lightsworn and Gladiator Beast Gyzarus. It all goes down in St. Louis, and you can be a part of the action. Head over to the event listing over on Upper Deck Entertainment’s official website for venue and time information. Then, check out the Shonen Jump St. Louis page over at premier tournament organizer Pastimes’ site for details (link: http://pastimes.net/sjcstlouis.htm), including side-event schedules, prize distribution, and contact information.
Can’t make it to St. Louis? Join us here on Metagame for live coverage, and you’ll have all the dueling details as soon as we do. Will Judgment Dragon and Gladiator Beast Gyzarus live up to the hype? Can Dark Armed Dragon dominate once again? Will brand new innovation reign supreme?! We’ll have answers these questions and more, as we bring you live coverage from the tournament floor on May 24 and 25!
This Week on Metagame
Today, I kick off our week with a look at a card that’s become one of my personal favorites: Elemental Hero Prisma. With three new fusion monsters debuting in Light of Destruction, it’s time to look at the quiet support fusions have received over the past several months, and Prisma is an amazing asset to a variety of decks. If you play Gladiator Beasts, Destiny 
Heroes, Elemental Heroes, or anything else that might run fusion monsters, you should definitely click over to The Binder today.
Jerome joins us tomorrow with a deck that answers an all-too-common question: can the Lightsworn compete without Judgment Dragon? Jerome thinks they can, and the key is another of the Lightsworn’s high-level monsters, Celestia, Lightsworn Angel. A dash of negation, a little Pot of Avarice, and even Aurkus, Lightsworn Druid all add up to a deck that’s surprisingly competitive. It’s the perfect set up to tide you over until you can get a few Judgment Dragons yourself.
On Wednesday, Curtis continues his look at the intricacies of Summons, and this time, he focuses on contact fusions. With Gladiator Beast Gyzarus set to tear up regional tournaments in the coming weeks, it’s really important to know how contact fusions work. This week, Curtis takes a look at how they can be stopped. So if you’re going to play with or against 
Gladiator Beasts in the next while, this one’s a must-read. Curtis also gives some details on Marauding Captain and its interaction with Solemn Judgment.
Thursday, Matt Peddle returns from a Top 8 showing in Nashville to teach you more tricks of the trade. This time Matt discusses techniques to bait and spring simple trap plays that will leave your opponents in bad situations. If you’ve been curious about some of the finer points in dueling psychology, this is a great article to get you started.
Bryan Camareno’s been with us here on Metagame for over a year, and during his tenure, he’s picked up some important lessons about life as a duelist. He’s going to share his ten best lessons with you this week and next, so check out The Practical Duelist on Friday for the first five. Bryan discusses everything from forming and joining teams to protecting your belongings at events, so his offering this week really has something for everybody. Don’t miss it!
Light and Darkness Dragon was huge in Nashville, placing five duelists in Day 2 and claiming both spots in the finals. The reason? Well, a slower metagame (thanks to the recent mid-format changes) made Light and Darkness Dragon’s success technically possible, but it was Mario Matheu’s deck from Shonen Jump Championship Minneapolis that really kicked 
things off. This week in The Champions, Matt Peddle will show you what made Matheu’s deck so worthy of imitation.
Finally, Ryan Murphy finishes out our week with a look at a Traditional deck that happened to gain a lot of power in the Advanced because of last week’s changes. Ryan’s got a killer Zombie build that any fan of the undead would be happy to carry into a Traditional tournament. The result is a decklist that demonstrates highly relevant ideas for Advanced format decks.
That’s it for this week! Join us in another seven days as we continue to unravel the fallout of Light of Destruction. We’ll be counting the days to Shonen Jump Championship St. Louis, and I for one hope to see you there.
Thanks for joining us here on Metagame,
—Jason Grabher-Meyer
Contributing Editor, Metagame.com