Welcome to Day 2 of the UDS Winter Invitational in Las Vegas! We’re starting our day with Las Vegas Duelist Jose Frias Frias, who is packing a Blue-Eyes Guardragon Deck! The strategy plays a ton of unique cards including Beast King Barbaros, King Dragun, and less common Danger! monsters like Danger! Ogopogo!. He even has the YCS Prize Card Chaos Emperor, the Dragon of Armageddon! His opponent is Micheal Steffens from Fargo, ND. He’s using a unique Thunder Dragon build, using more hand traps like Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring than usual (most play none or few to accomodate Danger! monsters), Mind Control in the Main Deck, and surprises like Superdreadnought Rail Cannon Gustav Max!

Duel 1

Chaos Dragon Levianeer, Beast King Barbaros, Blue-Eyes White Dragon, The Melody of Awakening Dragon, and Danger!? Jackalope?. He played Melody, discarding Jackalope, and Steffens used Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring to negate Melody. The discarded Jackalope Special Summoned Danger! Ogopogo! from his Deck. He Normal Summoned Beast King Barbaros and Xyz Summoned Galaxy-Eyes Cipher Dragon, then used that to play Number 95: Galaxy-Eyes Dark Matter Dragon! It sent Guardragon Promineses, Gardragon Garmides, and Destrudo the Lost Dragon’s Frisson to the Graveyard. Steffens banished Thunder Dragonmatrix, Thunder Dragondark, and Thunder Dragonroar. That allowed Steffens to add Thunder Dragon Fusion and Thunder Dragonmatrix to his hand and Special Summon a Dragondark! Frias continued, using Garmides, discarding Blue-Eyes White Dragon to add Garmides to his hand. Then, since Blue-Eyes went to the Graveyard, he Special Summoned Garmides from his hand and Promineses from his Graveyard. He paid half his Life Points to Special Summon Destrudo as well. He used Destrudo and Dark Matter to play LANphorhynchus, then used Promineses to play Guardragon Elpy. He used Garmides to play Guardragon Pisty. Now with three Link Monsters, he could use Elpy to Special Summon Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon! That Special Summoned Cipher Dragon from the Graveyard. He used Red-Eyes and LANphorhynchus to play Triple Burst Dragon. Then he used Cipher Dragon to play another Dark Matter! He used its effect, sending The White Stone of Legend, Amorphage Goliath, and Arkbrave Dragon to the Graveyard. Steffens banished Aloof Lupine, Denko Sekka, and Ash Blossom from his Deck. Then, Frias used White Stone to add a Blue-Eyes to his hand.

Pisty Special Summoned Red-Eyes again, and Red-Eyes Special Summoned White Stone from the Graveyard. He used Red-Eyes and Triple Burst to play Guardragon Agarpain, and had that use its effect to Special Summon Hot Red Dragon Archfiend Abyss! He then used White Stone and all his Guardragon Link Monsters to play Saryuja Skull Dread! Skull Dread let him draw Destrudo, Danger! Nessie!, Danger! Thunderbird!, and Ogopogo. He returned Nessie, Destrudo, and Blue-Eyes to the Deck. Then White Stone resolved, adding Blue-Eyes back to his hand. He banished LANphorhynchus, White Stone, and Blue-Eyes from his Graveyard to play Chaos Dragon Levianeer, using its effect to Special Summon Beast King Barbaros. He combined Barbaros and Levianeer for Number 90: Galaxy-Eyes Photon Lord in Defense Position! In the End Phase, Dragondark returned to Steffens’s hand since it was Summoned with Dragonroar.

In Steffens’s Standby Phase, Amorphage Goliath hit the field thanks to Arkbrave Dragon! Steffens started with Allure of Darkness, and banished Dragondark. He used its effect to add Thunder Dragonhawk to his hand. Mind Control targeted Photon Lord, and Frias used his Hot Red Dragon to negate it. He used Dragonhawk to Special Summon Dragonroar, in the zone Saryuja was pointing to, giving it a 300 ATK boost. He then used Dragonmatrix to try to boost it again, but Photon Lord’s effect shut that down. He looked at his hand and conceded the first Duel!

Duel 2

Steffens started with Aloof Lupine, banishing Dragonroar to banish Dragondark from his Deck. He used both effects, adding Thunder Dragon Fusion to his hand and Special Summoning Dragonmatrix. He Link Summoned Reprodocus, and Dragonmatrix added another Dragonmatrix to his hand. He used Monster Reborn to Special Summon the other Dragonmatrix, and had Reprodocus turn it into a Dinosaur. He used both monsters to play Summon Sorceress, then used Thunder Dragon Fusion to shuffle his banished Thunder Dragons into the Deck and play Thunder Dragon Titan! Now Summon Sorceress was able to Special Summon Dragondark. He passed with no followup.

Frias had Danger! Thunderbird!; Beast King Barbaros; Danger! Ogopogo!; Gameciel, the Sea Turtle Kaiju; and Parsec, the Interstellar Dragon. He drew Jackalope. He started by Tributing Thunder Dragon Titan to Special Summon Gameciel on Steffens’s side of the field. He activated Danger! Thunderbird! from his hand, discarding Parsec. He Special Summoned Thunderbird and drew another Jackalope. He Normal Summoned Beast King Barbaros, then activated Ogopogo. It discarded Jackalope, so he Special Summoned Ogopogo and drew another Gameciel. Then, Jackalope Special Summoned another Ogopogo. He used both Ogopogo to play Cipher Dragon, and that to play Galaxy-Eyes Full Armor Photon Dragon! He used Full Armor’s effect to destroy Summon Sorceress. Then he used Full Armor to play Dark Matter, which sent Amorphage Goliath, The White Stone of Legend, and Arkbrave Dragon to the Graveyard (White Stone gave him a Blue-Eyes after), and Steffens banished Dragonroar and two Ash Blossom from his Deck. The banished Dragonroar Special Summoned Dragonmatrix in Defense Position. Frias Special Summoned Gameciel to his own side of the field, then used Dark Matter’s effect to attack twice this turn. It attacked Steffens’s Gameciel and Dragondark. Dragondark added Dragonhawk to Steffens’s hand. Frias continued, with Gameciel destroying Dragonmatrix – Steffens got another Dragonmatrix in his hand. Finally, Beast King Barbaros and Thunderbird attacked directly, leaving Steffens with 1700 Life Points. In Main Phase 2, Frias used every monster he had to play Borreload Dragon! Steffens responded by playing Fantastical Dragon Phantazmay and filtering one card from his hand.

In Steffens’s Standby Phase, Arkbrave’s effect Special Summoned Amorphage Goliath. Steffens used Dragonhawk to Special Summon his banished Dragonroar. He used Mind Control to take Borreload Dragon! Then he used its effect to weaken Amorphage Goliath. Dragonroar destroyed Goliath and Phantazmay attacked directly. Frias had 5450 Life Points. In Main Phase 2, Steffens Tributed Dragonroar to play Thunder Dragon Colossus, and Dragonroar’s effect Special Summoned Dragondark. Then he used Phantazmay, Dragondark, and the stolen Borreload Dragon to play Knightmare Unicorn. Dragondark added Thunder Dragon Fusion to his hand. He banished the Thunder Dragon Fusion from his Graveyard to add Thunder Dragon to his hand, and used its effect to add two more Thunder Dragon to his hand. He activated Thunder Dragon Fusion, fusing a Thunder Dragon from his hand with Dragondark and Thunder Dragon from his Graveyard, to play Thunder Dragon Titan. Since the materials were returned to the Deck, he now activated his last Thunder Dragon to add the other two back to his hand, and had his Titan destroy the Knightmare Unicorn.

Frias drew Beast King Barbaros, adding it to his hand of Blue-Eyes and Jackalope. He activated Jackalope and discarded the Jackalope itself, which Special Summoned Ogopogo. He thought over his options but chose to concede, with only 8 minutes left in the round.

Duel 3

Frias played first, with a hand of Chaos Dragon Levianeer, Ogopogo, Amorphage Goliath, Guardragon Promineses, and Chaos Emperor, the Dragon of Armageddon. He activated Ogopogo, discarding Levianeer. He Special Summoned Ogopogo in Defense Position and drew The Melody of Awakening Dragon. He activated Melody, discarding Goliath, and Steffens used Ash Blossom to shut it down. Frias passed.

Steffens started things with Allure of Darkness, banishing Dragonroar, and used that to Special Summon Dragondark. Instant Fusion let him Fusion Summon Thousand-Eyes Restrict, and it ate up Ogopogo! Then he used Restrict and Dragondark to Link Summon Reprodocus. Dragondark added Thunder Dragon Fusion to his hand. He Normal Summoned Dragonmatrix and used Reprodocus to make it a Dinosaur, using both monsters to Link Summon Summon Sorceress. Dragonmatrix added another copy of itself to his hand. He Special Summoned Chaos Dragon Levianeer, then used Thunder Dragon Fusion to play Thunder Dragon Titan! He used Summon Sorceress’s effect to Special Summon Dragonroar from his Deck. Summon Sorceress, Titan, and Levianeer all attacked and wiped out Frias’s Life Points!

Micheal Steffens takes the Match with his Thunder Dragons!