Round 1 Feature Match: Naveen Shankar VS Charles Oransky
Naveeen Shankar is 13 years old and won the Dragon Duel Championship with Blackwings in 2009. Today, he’s running a Machina Gadget Deck. His opponent, Charles Oransky, is here with his 16 year old son, and is running a Machina Gadget Deck like Shankar’s, but with a bunch of burn cards added in, including Des Koala and Just Desserts. Shankar has experience on his side, but it’s anyone’s Duel to win.
Oransky Summoned Yellow Gadget to the field and activated its effect to search his Deck for a Green Gadget to add to his hand. He activated Swords of Revealing Light and ended his turn.
Shankar opened up with Thunder King Rai-Oh, Machina Gearframe, Machina Force, Mystical Space Typhoon, and 2 copies of Smashing Ground. He activated Mystical Space Typhoon to destroy Swords, and then Summoned Thunder King Rai-Oh and attacked over Yellow Gadget, destroying it in inflicting 700 points of damage to Oransky. Shankar Set Smashing Ground and ended his turn.
Oransky Set a monster and a Spell or Trap Card.
Shankar drew Cyber Dragon and then attacked Oransky’s face-down Snowman Eater with Thunder King Rai-Oh. The Snowman Eater flipped face-up and destroy Rai-Oh with its effect. Snowman Eater survived the attack with its 1900 DEF. Shankar Summoned Machina Gearframe in Main Phase 2, and searched his Deck for a copy of Machina Fortress to add from his Deck to his hand.
Oransky activated Smashing Ground next turn to destroy Machina Gearframe. Then he Summoned Green Gadget to the field and activated its effect to search his Deck for a Red Gadget and add it to his hand. Green Gadget attacked, and Shankar dropped down to 6600 Life Points. Oransky Set a second card to his back row before ending his turn.
Shankar drew Solemn Warning next turn and then Special Summoned Cyber Dragon from his hand. Oransky flipped Ceasefire after it hit the field to deal 1500 points of damage to Shankar. Next, Shankar fused his Cyber Dragon with Oransky’s Green Gadget to Summon a Chimeratech Fortress Dragon with 2000 ATK, and used it to attack over Snowman Eater. He Set Solemn Warning and ended his turn.
Oransky activated Trap Stun next turn. Then he Summoned Red Gadget to the field and activated its effect to search his Deck for a Yellow Gadget to add to his hand. He now had 4 cards in his hand. He discarded Yellow Gadget and Machina Fortress to Special Summon the Fortress back to the field. Then he used the Fortress to attack over Chimeratech Fortress Dragon and attacked directly with Red Gadget, dropping Shankar to 3300 Life Points. Oransky ended his turn without any Set Spell or Trap Cards.
Shankar drew Royal Oppression next turn. He activated Smashing Ground to destroy Machina Fortress, then discarded his own Machina Fortress and Machina Force to Special Summon Machina Fortress from his Graveyard. He used the Fortress to attack and destroy the Red Gadget, then Set Royal Oppression and ended his turn.
Oransky Set a monster and ended his turn.
Shankar attacked Oransky’s Set Snowman Eater next turn. It targeted Machina Fortress, forcing Oransky to reveal Des Koala and Machina Force from his hand. Shankar discarded Des Koala with the Fortress’s effect, and then his Fortress was destroyed by Snowman Eater before Snowman Eater went down in battle.
Oransky tried to Summon Machina Gearframe next turn, but Shankar flipped Solemn Warning and paid 2000 LP to negate the Summon! Then Oransky discarded Machina Force from his hand to try to Special Summon Machina Fortress from his Graveyard, but Shankar flipped Royal Oppression and dropped down to 500 Life Points in order to negate the Summon!
Shankar Summoned Yellow Gadget next turn, searching his Deck for a Green Gadget to add to his hand with its effect. Next, Yellow Gadget attacked directly. Shankar Set a card to his back row before ending his turn.
Oransky drew a card and passed, with no field only 1 card in his hand.
Shankar drew Bottomless Trap Hole, Summoned Green Gadget, and attacked with Yellow Gadget and Green Gadget. Oransky dropped down to 2300 Life Points. Shankar Set Bottomless Trap Hole and ended his turn.
Oransky drew a card and Set a back row, ending his turn.
Shankar Summoned Red Gadget next turn. He used its effect to add a Yellow Gadget from his Deck to his hand, then attacked directly with all of his Gadgets. Oransky used Dimensional Prison to remove the Red Gadget from the game, but the remaining 2 Gadgets finished him off!
Oransky went first in Duel 2 and started things off by Summoning a Yellow Gadget and activating its effect to search his Deck for a Green Gadget to add to his hand. He ended his turn with no back rows.
Shankar opened up with Machina Gearframe, 2 copies of Machina Fortress, Nobleman of Crossout, Solemn Judgment, and Cyber Dragon. He grabbed his calculator and quickly did some math. “I’m going to go with ‘you don’t run Gorz’,” he said. He Special Summoned Cyber Dragon, then Normal Summoned Machina Gearframe and activated its effect to add a Machina Force from his Deck to his hand. Then he discarded 2 copies of Machina Fortress to Special Summon 1 of them from the Graveyard. Next, he discarded Machina Force to Special Summon his other copy of Machina Fortress from the Graveyard, and fused his Cyber Dragon with Oransky’s Yellow Gadget to Summon a 2000 ATK Chimeratech Fortress Dragon. Chimeratech Fortress Dragon, Machina Gearframe, and both copies of Machina Fortress attacked directly for a total of 8800 points of damage, ending the Duel in a single turn!
Naveen Shankar defeats Charles Oransky 2-0 by winning the second Duel in a single turn!
Post-Event Analysis!
See what our panel of experts had to say about this Duel after the event was over.
Jason Grabher-Meyer (The Old Man of Dueling)
To counter the serious pressure from Oransky’s Snowman Eater in Duel 1, Shankar brought in one of the strongest Side Deck cards in current competition, Nobleman of Crossout. Nobleman’s a great card against popular Decks like Quickdraw and X-Sabers and by playing it here against Machinas, Shankar could outplay any monsters Oransky Set (like the increasingly popular Snowman Eater), while Cyber Dragon would let him take out any face-up Machine-Types.
Michael Kohanim (2009 World Championship Competitor)
In Duel 3, Shankar noticed that he could pile over 8000 ATK onto the field on his first turn, and won the Duel right then and there! He noted that Oransky may be able to disrupt his play with Gorz the Emissary of Darkness, and that Oransky would likely be able to fight back if he had it in his hand. But Shankar correctly chose to make the game-winning attacks anyway. Shankar knew that the potential reward of winning outweighed the risk that his opponent had Gorz.
P.J. Tierney (Duelist from across The Pond)
Shankar opened up with 2 copies of Smashing Ground in Duel 1, but didn’t use either of them immediately on his opponent’s Yellow Gadget, instead taking it down in battle with his Thunder King Rai-Oh. While this wasn’t a spectacular move by any means, holding back on a Smashing Ground is one of the first things that many of the top Duelists learned in their first weeks of Dueling. Using as few cards as possible to get rid of opposing cards allows you to use those cards on bigger threats later on (like Oransky’s Machina Fortress).