Subject: 2003 Yu-Gi-Oh World Championship

Hi!!

I know that this e-mail is a little late but I was hoping that you could review it and let your audience know a little about the 2003 Yu-Gi-Oh World Championships.

I can sum up my experience at the World Championships in one word - disappointing. Perhaps this was because I was expecting too much from upper deck, or perhaps because my overall expectations were too high. Let me tell you what happened.....

I ordered my tickets one month in advance, so you can imagine how excited I was to go. I was hoping to learn a little about what was coming up, meet some other serious players, pick up some tips, do some trading, and of course do some dueling.

The day of the event came and another duelist and I jumped into the car and drove the 2 hours to NYC. Boy, was it a good thing we got there 45 minutes early! The line to get into Madison Square Gardens was looped around several times inside the entry and then stretched to the end of the block and continued another 3 blocks! Needless to say, there was a lot of line cutting that occurred when the doors opened.

When we finally got inside, we thought that we would be immediately allowed to join in on the activities. However, we were instead ushered into an auditorium where we were given an introduction that reminded me of a high school pep rally (minus the toilet paper).

After 25 minutes of telling us what was going on and asking really stupid questions about the game (i.e. 'What is the attack strength of Summoned Skull?'), we were finally allowed to enter into the activities (keep in mind that you only had 3 1/2 hours to begin with to do everything)in the expo center and the terrace. The first activity we tried was the single elimination duels in the expo center. This would have been better if it were single elimination matches (you could use your side deck), but what the heck..... If you lost your duel you had to leave the area and get back into line. (This could be very time consuming.) If you won your duel, you stayed where you were until you lost or you won three duels. After three duels they gave you a booster pack and stamped your hand. You were then required to leave and not come back to that area again.

Once my pack was won, I decided to look around and see what else there was to do in the expo center. There were a dozen tables set up for fun dueling (to encompass the 1000 or so people that wanted to duel). The was a magician's workshop (this event was held twice during the session) where trivia question were asked for packs (geared towards little kids in the front row).

Needless to say, we quickly moved on to the terrace. This was set up for the video games and the retail store. First thing we noticed, once we were up there, was the fact that there was hardly any AC...it was HOT (literally)! The video games were previews of the new video games coming out soon. However, unless you had gotten there early, you were not going to be able to view the games. This is because they only had one station with 4 controllers for the PC and Game Cube games and 6 Game boys hooked to a table for the Game boy game. The retail store was expensive also (4.25 per pack). Hence, the terrace was quickly abandoned...never to be approached again.

So here are some tips I have for those duelists that want to go to next year's World Championship:

1.) Get there early!! This way you won't have to stand in the line that never ends. Or better yet, get there late - even if you miss the intro, you won't be missing much.

2.) Don't take trade material. There is no place to trade except the floor in the corner, which everyone will be fighting for.

3.) Go through the single elimination duels early. This way you can perhaps obtain a seat at one of the fun dueling tables when you are done. Otherwise, if you wish to continue dueling, you will be dueling on the floor in the corner, which everyone will be fighting for.

4.) Do not go if you want to learn anything. I would say only about 20% of the people I saw were actual serious duelists. The rest were kids just starting out. I couldn't even get anything out of the world matches because the MC's were awful.

5.) Get tickets early. There were approximately 300 people standing in line on the other side of the entrance to Madison Square Gardens waiting for tickets.

Well that is about it....Hope this helps everyone out!!

Nakaiya

Nakaiya21@aol.com

PS. Out of all the booster packs given out, I never heard of anyone getting anything higher than a super rare...very peculair.....

Note - I never mentioned the drawing to duel the video game champions or the duel champions because it wasn't even worth mentioning.