The 50th SHONEN JUMP Championship brought with it a new Prize Card: Doomcaliber Knight. Here’s a look at some of the great SHONEN JUMP Championships from the era when Doomcaliber Knight was the top card!

SHONEN JUMP Championship #50
Location: Costa Mesa, California
Date: March 8th, 2008
Competitors: 1056
Winner: Lazaro Bellido
1st Place Deck: Dark Armed Dragon Return
Runner-Up: Kris Perovic
2nd Place Deck: Diamond Dude Turbo
Prize Card: Doomcaliber Knight
An unprecedented offering of prizes and an all-new Prize Card brought Duelists flocking to Costa Mesa in droves, for the biggest SHONEN JUMP Championship to date! Dark Armed Dragon Return was the Deck to beat, but with everything on the line some of the world’s greatest Duelists pulled out all the stops. Duelists from the United States, Canada, Mexico, Australia, and all over Europe brought Demise Decks, Samurai Decks, Gadgets, Monarchs, Macro Cosmos, and every other Deck under the sun, in their bid to make the Finals table.
At the end of the weekend, Canada’s Lazar Bellido Dueled the master of Diamond Dude Turbo, Kris Perovic. Bellido defeated Perovic 2-0, claiming the title of SHONEN JUMP Champion and starting a win streak that would see him win a second SHONEN JUMP Championship and the Canadian National title by the end of the Summer.

SHONEN JUMP Championship #52
Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Date: April 12th, 2008
Winner: Paul Levitin
1st Place Deck: Gladiator Beasts
Runner-Up: Mario Matheu
2nd Place Deck: Dark Armed Dragon Return with Light and Darkness Dragon
Prize Card: Doomcaliber Knight
With Dark Armed Dragon Return winning everything in sight, former SHONEN JUMP Champion Paul Levitin took a big chance to try and outplay the competition. He ran Gladiator Beasts (weeks before the release of Gladiator Beast Gyzarus in Light of Destruction), relying on Gladiator Beast Heraklinos to stop the Spell Cards that Dark Armed Duelists relied on. The gambit paid off – Levitin took a Deck no one was even thinking about, and used it to become a 2-time SHONEN JUMP Champion Levitin narrowly defeated the Deck that many thought would win the tournament at the end of Day 1 – Mario Matheu’s Light and Darkness Dragon Deck.
Dark Armed Return would win one more big tournament, but with the release of Gyzarus and Steven Harris’s win at SHONEN JUMP Championship St. Louis 6 weeks later, Gladiator Beasts would go on to win every SHONEN JUMP Championship of the Summer. The defeated Matheu would go on to win with Gladiator Beasts himself, exactly three months later on July 12^th, in Honolulu.

SHONEN JUMP Championship #59
Location: Baltimore, Maryland
Date: September 6th, 2008
Competitors: 450
Winner: Jermol Jupiter
1st Place Deck: Gladiator Beasts
Runner-Up: Jeff Walker
2nd Place Deck: Emergency Teleport Dark Armed Dragon Synchro – AKA “TeleDAD”
Prize Card: Doomcaliber Knight
Gladiator Beasts had dominated for nearly 5 months, but Dueling was about to change, thanks to The Duelist Genesis. A new Advanced Format had left Gladiator Beasts seemingly untouched, but the power of Synchro Monsters promised a radical shift in the Dueling landscape. Day 2 saw Jermol Jupiter with Gladiator Beasts against Jeff Walker. A lucky Solemn Judgment ended the second Duel early, and Jupiter scored the win with Gladiator Beasts. It would be the last SHONEN JUMP Championship victory for Gladiator Beasts to this day.

SHONEN JUMP Championship #60
Location: Tulsa, Oklahoma
Date: September 26th, 2008
Competitors: 340
Winner: Adam Corn
1st Place Deck: TeleDAD
Runner-Up: Joe Cantu
2nd Place Deck: TeleDAD
Prize Card: Doomcaliber Knight
After Gladiator Beasts won the previous SHONEN JUMP Championship in Baltimore just 3 weeks before, the TeleDAD era had now arrived. While only 1 lone Gladiator Beast Deck made it to Day 2 in Tulsa, a whopping 11 TeleDAD Decks were played in the Top 16, with a Zombie Deck and 3 Lightsworn filling the remaining spots. The addition of triple Solemn Judgment to the Teleport Dark Armed Dragon strategy proved to be the missing piece of the puzzle, and after 10 Day 2 qualifications Adam Corn finally became a SHONEN JUMP Champion.
The first Duel of the Finals saw Corn claim the win with 2 Set copies of Solemn Judgment unused, while the second ended with a direct attack from a massive Colossal Fighter. TeleDAD would go on to win the next 7 SHONEN JUMP Championships, dominating Duels for 4 months straight. Cesar Gonzalez, Ryan Spicer, and Steven Harris would all take their turn in the winner’s circle, while Jerry Wang would win not once, but twice, scoring 3 SHONEN JUMP Championship wins in under a year.