A new season of Yu-Gi-Oh! Championship Series (“YCS”) Dueling begins this weekend! YCS Montréal is the first YCS in North America since the North America World Championship Qualifier took place last month, and it kicks off a new normal for YCS events! Starting this weekend, North America’s YCS events feature three days of tournament play, with two separate tournaments taking place! A Genesys Main Event kicks off on Friday, an Advanced Main Event begins on Saturday, and top-placing competitors from both events will battle it out on Sunday to determine the champion of each tournament. We’ll be bringing written coverage of the events to the blog all weekend, starting with today’s Genesys Format tournament play!

In addition to the new Genesys gameplay that is now a mainstay of the extended YCS weekend, YCS Montréal brings Duelists new prizing that competitors can’t wait to get their hands on! A brand new trophy and various new prize cards are available for the first time this weekend, in addition to other never-before-seen prizes. Follow the blog coverage throughout the weekend to get a glimpse of the new prizing.

The three-day YCS structure and exclusive YCS prizing aren’t the only features that are new this weekend. The Genesys competition kicking off today has a new Genesys Format Points Update in effect, tweaking the Genesys Format that we saw at the North America World Championship Qualifier in July. Blitzclique Decks dominated the Genesys Format Main Event at the North America WCQ, with 7 Blitzclique Decks making it into the Top 8. The latest update adds points to several cards commonly used in Blitzclique Decks, potentially altering the landscape of the competitive Genesys Format. Various other point changes will also affect which Decks Duelists use to compete in the Genesys Format Main Event this weekend.

In the Advanced Format Main Event kicking off tomorrow, a few new cards are entering the fray! Chaos Origins is still the most recently released core booster set, and the cards it contains – including Pot of Sloth and cards in the “Light and Darkness Ritual” theme – are likely to have a big impact this weekend, just like they did at the North America World Championship Qualifier. But the Legendary ARC-V Decks released just a week ago introduce new cards that boost Lunalight, Odd-Eyes, and Speedroid Decks. In the hands of strong Duelists, these new cards could help their respective themes reach a new competitive level.

An exciting three days of Dueling are ahead! 139 Duelists are now seated to begin competing in the Genesys Format Main Event, and the tournament is about to start! It’s almost time to Duel!