Allen Pennington hails from Tampa Bay, Florida, but just moved to Orlando for school. He’s known locally as “The Gadget Guy.” Except for last format, he’s run Gadgets perpetually for several years now. The dedication is paying off here today, as Pennington is 6-1 going into this round.
Chioh Yim is playing Gladiator Beasts, complete with “Elemental Hero Stratos” and “Elemental Hero Prisma.” The speed of those cards and the access they give to “Gladiator Beast Gyzarus,” as well as the generally useful nature of Stratos, could be a deciding factor in this match. With that said though, everything will change once we hit Duel 2 and Side Decks become a factor. Read more…
With “Chaos Sorcerer” Semi-Limited and back to two copies per Deck as of September 1, there’s been a lot of buzz about the potential for a simple, focused LIGHT and DARK build.
The Deck’s goal? Nothing fancy or over-complicated. Just a variety of easy-to-use monsters with good effects – ones that can be Normal Summoned to run over your opponent’s monsters or take big chunks out of their Life Points through direct attacks.
Playing a lot of monster removal cards like “Fissure” and “Bottomless Trap Hole” means Duels can come down to very few cards on each side of the table. That lets big monsters with 1800 or 1900 ATK really shine, and sets up easy Summons of “Chaos Sorcerer” to dominate. This is exactly the kind of Deck that Taylor Raflowitz is running this weekend. Read more…
Former SHONEN JUMP Championship winner Ryan Spicer is back this weekend, and he always like to bring a Deck that has also been picked up and run by his friends. Earlier in this round we looked at a Chaos beatdown Deck from Taylor Raflowitz, but this Deck shows another way to approach this strategy, using a more complicated Chaos build that looks to take advantage of Special Summon effects and Synchro Monsters.
(By the way, a ‘Chaos Deck’ is a Deck that uses mostly LIGHT and DARK monsters. It takes its name from powerful monsters that require both Attributes, like “Chaos Sorcerer.” This isn’t to be confused with a ‘Twilight Deck,’ which uses mostly Lightsworn monsters for the LIGHT part of its Deck, combined with DARK monsters like “Dark Armed Dragon.”)
Read more…
It’s Round 7, and with three rounds remaining here in Day 1, it’s a great chance to look at what’s at the top tables! The ‘top tables’ are where the players with the strongest records so far today are playing against each other. So it’s a good indicator of which Duelist and Deck types are successful so far.
Here’s what the Decks at the top 10 tables looks like: Read more…
It’s Round 6, and each of participants in this feature match have 4-1 records so far. Aldo Garcia is 4-1 here today with Dragons, packing “Red-Eyes Wyvern” and “Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon” alongside “Light and Darkness Dragon,” “Totem Dragon,” “Prime Material Dragon,” and “Koa’ki Meiru Drago,” plus the new “White Night Dragon” card from Ancient Prophecy.
His opponent Cedric Hunter is running Blackwings with “Blackwing – Vayu the Emblem of Honor.” He’s using multiple copies of “Burial From a Different Dimension,” backed by “Armageddon Knight” and “Dark Grepher.” Since Hunter’s Deck centers around Special Summoning DARK monsters, “Koa’ki Meiru Drago” could be a deciding card in this matchup. Read more…
Three rounds have passed since our last Tech Update, and we’re back with four more cards that have been popping up in today’s competition! It all starts with a high-impact common from Ancient Prophecy. Read more…
Rodrigo Togores is the current National Champion from Spain, and is here today playing a Blackwing Deck built around “Blackwing – Vayu the Emblem of Honor.”
But his opponent is Taylor Raflowitz, playing Chaos beatdown with “Royal Oppression,” along with the new monster “Card Guard” from Ancient Prophecy. He’s got a number of Trap and monster effects that could make life difficult for Togores in this match. Should be interesting! Read more…
“Blackwing – Vayu the Emblem of Honor” has spawned a vast number of Decks since its release in Ancient Prophecy, but today is the first time Vayu is really being put to the test in a huge tournament.
Vayu is a Tuner monster that can be used along with other Blackwings in the Graveyard to Special Summon a Synchro Monster from the Extra Deck. Unlike other Tuners, Vayu can’t be used as a Tuner while it’s on the field, unless its effect on the field is negated (if its effect is negated, that makes it a ‘vanilla’ Tuner monster and you can now use it like any other Tuner).
A lot of different builds are being played here today using Vayu. Here’s what Spain’s National Champion Rodrigo Togores is running in his Vayu Deck. Read more…
Each year, the United States and Japan each send four Duelists to the Yu-Gi-Oh! TRADING CARD GAME World Championship. One of this year’s Japanese representatives has traveled here this weekend to compete in his first SHONEN JUMP Championship!
Satoshi Kato is running Lightsworn with Zombies, and while other competitors are playing Zombies studded with four or five Lightsworn monsters today, Kato’s gone so far as to run ten Lightsworn monsters plus a pair of “Judgment Dragons”! Read more…
Giuseppe Longo is playing one of the most frequently seen Decks at this tournament: Gladiator Beasts. His opponent is Austin Ruggeri, one of today’s Plant Duelists. Ruggeri made the finals of SHONEN JUMP Championship Chicago over two years ago, and is eager to make Day 2 yet again. Read more…
