13-year-old Brandon Miotke got second place in last year’s WCQ Dragon Duel Championship, losing to Jack Hoyt in the final round. Now, he’s 5-1 with his X-Saber Deck in the WCQ Main Event, and facing off against Justin Reyes – a Duelist who made it to the Top 16 of YCS Toronto with X-Sabers. Miotke is running a T.G. Plant Deck in today’s tournament, and he’s facing off against Justin Reyes’s Gladiator Beasts. This may be a tough Match for Miotke, since Reyes can remove Miotke’s T.G. monsters with the effect of Gladiator Beast Retiari to prevent their effects from activating in the End Phase.

Read more…

Gladiator Beasts are unique in today’s field because they offer a cunning Duelist several advantages that other strategies just can’t match.  Almost any Gladiator Beast can be sent back to the Deck to “tag out” for another Gladiator when it makes a successful attack.  Since all the Gladiator Beasts have different – and useful – abilities, a Gladiator Duelist can get to their most important monsters really easily.  They can get to the monsters they need, almost whenever they need them, provided they can attack and tag out.  That allows the Gladiator Duelist to run very few monsters, but still play a wide range of different monsters in a single Duel: even if they draw fewer monsters than other Decks over the course of any given game.

Read more…