It’s Monday, July 16th, 2007. The World Championships are right around the corner, Tactical Evolution looms imminent, and the dueling world has a brand new two-time Shonen Jump Champion!
Fili Luna Wins Shonen Jump Championship Detroit
Fili Luna has made a tremendous showing in this format. After making the Top 16 at Shonen Jump Championship Minneapolis, he did the same thing at both U.S. Nationals and Shonen Jump Phoenix. But it took a fourth stellar showing, at this past weekend’s Shonen Jump Detroit, for Fili to reclaim the glory he found at 2005’s SJC San Francisco! After three almost-there finishes, he’s claimed title gold yet again.
Battling his way through a two-day gauntlet that included duelists like Rob Cedar and Matt Peddle, Luna took an interesting deck centered on Crush Card Virus all the way to the finals, where he ousted Jonathan Labounty. A combination of Machine Beatdown (with no Cyber Phoenix) and Trooper Monarchs (with only three Monarchs), Luna’s deck makes for yet another innovative Championship-winning strategy.
Our congratulations go out to Fili Luna, Shonen Jump Champion of Detroit! Missed the action? You can relive it all right here on Metagame.com, by checking out our round-by-round coverage of the event.
World Championships This Month At San Diego Comic-Con
After being hosted for two consecutive years in Tokyo, the 2007 World Championships are being held on U.S. soil once again! San Diego’s Comic-Con International will provide an eclectic backdrop to this year’s final showdown, as twenty-two of the world’s greatest duelists compete for the title of World Champion.
Want to be a part of the year’s most important Yu-Gi-Oh! tournament? Unless you earned your invite, you won’t be able to compete, but there will still be plenty to do at Comic-Con! The world’s best go at it on Saturday and Sunday, but there’ll be Yugi-festivities all weekend long, including the world premier of the new Premium Packs. Marshmallon, Shield Crush, Magician of Black Chaos, and more—we’ve waited years for them, and now they’re finally coming to the U.S. Heck, I know I’ll be lining up early to get mine.
The number of Premium Packs on sale at Comic-Con (and whether or not there will be a limit on the boosters one can purchase) is currently unclear, so be sure to head over to the Viz Comics booth as early as possible. Remember, Premium Pack boosters won’t be available in stores until sometime in late September or early October, so this is your chance to get a jump on the competition.
A new booster set and a new World Champion: it’s going to be an exciting weekend.
Tactical Evolution Sneak Previews in Two-And-a-Half Weeks
Speaking of new booster sets, the next full-sized Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG release is Tactical Evolution, and you’ll be able to get a first look at the set on August 4th and 5th. It’s time for another Sneak Preview weekend, and this one certainly won’t disappoint.
Sign up for Swiss competition or open play, and you’ll get boosters of the new set two weeks before they’re available in stores. Arrive early enough and you’ll also receive the new promo card Gemini Summoner—a new monster that’s never been released anywhere in the world until now! Tactical Evolution introduces a new type of monster called the Gemini monsters, as well as Professor Viper’s Venom cards and Jessy Anderson’s mighty Rainbow Dragon. Watch for competitive new cards for Spellcasters, Zombies, Cyberdarks, and other deck themes too! For more info and to find a Sneak Preview event near you, just check out Upper Deck Entertainment’s official Sneak Preview Weekend page.
This Week on Metagame.com
Today, Mike Rosenberg gets our week started with an in-depth look at Cyber Phoenix. After a win at Shonen Jump Championship Phoenix and a huge showing in Detroit, Machine Beatdown is the deck to beat. It owes its success to Cyber Phoenix, and Mike is going to show you what makes this subtle, low-ATK monster the centerpiece of such an aggressive deck. Click on over and see Mike’s full investigation.
Jerome McHale’s been tinkering around with Justin Womack’s deck from the 2007 U.S. National Championship, and has created an all-new strategy that operates on similar principles. This Dark World variant uses a trick you may not be familiar with to create massive discard opportunities, and with a little help from Reflect Bounder, it can absolutely dominate the opponent at any point. Check it out tomorrow and get ready for some twisted combos!
On Wednesday, I’ll take some of the new secret rares out for a spin and put them to work in the deck they seem to have been planned for—Ectoplasmer burn. Nowadays there’s more to this tricky continuous spell than ever before, because Force of the Breaker has given us several high-impact monsters that offer prime combo opportunities. Don’t miss it, as I update an old niche classic with Mist Archfiend and Liche Lord, King of the Underworld.
Curtis Schultz takes a look at some more reader-requested rulings quandaries this Thursday, tackling issues that range from the practical (Mind Crush versus Advanced Ritual Art) to the, er, creative (Bubble Crash versus a whole whack of Crystal Beasts). A few doses of humor and a really sad goblin spice things up, so if you’re a serious dueling competitor, you won’t want to miss this installment of Curtis’s Duel Academy.
Friday, Bryan Camareno delivers Part 2 of the short series he introduced last week, detailing how you can stay ahead of the game. This time around, he addresses factors like new booster sets, evolving deck designs, adaptation to change, and the importance of tournament play. Wonder how the champions are always one step ahead? Wonder no more, and check out The Practical Duelist this week.
Korey Stoner wielded one of the most inventive decks to make Day 2 this year, when he piloted his Earth Beatdown deck to a Top 16 finish at Phoenix. Gigantes and Elemental Hero Wildheart played central roles in an over-arching game plan that was nothing short of brilliant, and Matt’s going to take the deck apart to show you what made it so good.
Finally, Ryan Murphy will close off our week with a profile of one of the Traditional Format’s most unique decks: Empty Jar. Jorge Pinna Lizzaraga made an international impact when he took second place at the World Championships with his innovative deck-out strategy, and the dueling world took note. How did it work, and how can it be built today? Ryan will answer those questions and more.
That’s it for this week, but get ready for two weeks of detailed Tactical Evolution previews, starting this coming Sunday! Some of your favorite writers will sound off on upcoming cards from the new set, and you won’t want to miss a single day of our coverage. Til then, I’m . . .
—Jason Grabher-Meyer
Contributing Editor, Metagame.com