Fresh off his Public Event win, Joshua sat down with us to give his thoughts on sealed play and Battle Pack: Epic Dawn.

He was very excited for sealed play already. He was also very excited about the ability for some friends to just get together, pick up a box of Battle Packs, and spend a night playing. He’s already got a spot set up in his basement for such occasions, he said.

He really liked Gem-Knight Pearl, and was glad to get him early, not having to wait for Hidden Arsenal 6. He also was very happy with Fabled Ashenveil and King Tiger Wanghu. However, his favorite of all is Vampire Lord. “He’s the signature card of the person who taught me to play Yu-Gi-Oh!, and I’ve learned over the years not to underestimate this guy.”

When asked what his strategy was after opening his cards up, he said he first went through all his cards to find anything he knew for sure he could use. Cards like Raigeki or Tragoedia, which are good in any circumstance. After going through once and picking cards out, he went through his remaining cards again, this timing choosing cards that would support the ones he took the first time.  For example, he took Burden of the Mighty because it works so well with King Tiger Wanghu, not to mention being generally good in most cases. He also said that Drillroid was really good, since he saw a lot more defense position monsters in sealed play. And finally, one card he used extensively was Damage Gate. “Damage Gate is a card I’ve been looking at since it came out. While it’s not spectacular in today’s Advanced Format, in sealed play it’s great. Take a direct attack from something big enough, you can bring out whatever you want to!”

During our Battle Pack events we saw a lot of people reading cards, since they hadn’t seen some of them in so many years. Joshua said that personally, he had to look over Theban Nightmare, Exarion Universe, and Chaos Necromancer. He was especially surprised at how good Exarion Universe turned out to be!