Take a look around the different Yu-Gi-Oh message boards! From the beginning of the game’s time, players have constantly sought to achieve some sort of credibility from their peers through playing the game. Part of this is natural human instinct; after all, any rational human being would like to see some sort of positive result from any hours committed to any activity. You don’t take up a new hobby thinking “well, I’ll be a dismal failure at this while spending hard-earned dollars, how fun!” At least, I don’t.

Credibility. You can slice it so many different ways. Part of it is the allure of the internet, and the wondrous perks that net anonymity bring. People are far more rude, condescending, and abrasive over the privacy of the internet. You’ll see many young Yu-Gi-Oh players frequenting message boards talking like e-thugs, flaming anybody they consider a “n00b.” (I choose to mock this form of spelling).

Nearly every Yu-Gi-Oh player, from serious to casual, seeks some sort of credibility in the world. As a Metagame.com writer, I’ve seen dozens and dozens of people each Shonen Jump event run up to Jason Grabher Meyer, desperately seeking their time in the limelight. Even these very Pojo.com forums (not to mention other more “intense forumZ”) are filled with people who seek recognition, or even authority. Heck, you can scroll through all of the articles written by people on this site. Credibility is what they seek.

I think I’ve fully immersed myself into being a casual player now. Certainly the competitive fires within me often return at times, especially when reading coverage of big events such as Nationals. However, after graduating college life has become a lot more difficult to balance. I actually ended up sitting out at this years Nats (oh dear), and am writing these next articles from lovely Sydney, Australia. However, now that school is out of the way, I want to return to the game in full force like the old days. Instead of a journey filled with peaks and hiccups, thanks in no part to a miscreant writer (yours truly) who promises articles but never delivers, I want to try a hand at this Pojo gig one more time.

The long-winded point that I’m trying to make is that I’ve always been given a free pass when it comes to what Yu-Gi-Oh players seek most. The serious Yu-Gi-Oh player seeks recognition, adulation, and even immortality within this peculiar little game. As for me, even before I hit the tournament circuit I was granted credibility because of a post here at Pojo that I’d miraculously stumbled into (I simply e-mailed Pojosama and got my application passed through! Thank you Bill <3). At the time of my earlier writings, I hadn’t accomplished a single thing in the Yu-Gi-Oh world or the tournament circuit. Yet people gave me credibility!

Now other than me realizing I’ve been a lucksack, I’ve been given a unique perspective that few players have. Being given a basis of credibility allows me to look at other player’s accomplishments without the jealousy or hate that the community tends to afford. I witnessed T’s amazing run first-hand, Wilson Luc’s streak, Overdose’s domination at Nationals two years ago, and Paul Levitin’s explosion onto the scene with the same amount of amazement that you did. But being a big name player myself, I was able to look through the prism objectively. I’d like to share my thoughts with you on the nature of competitive Yu-Gi-Oh.

Credibility is the Number One Goal for Semi-Serious to Serious Yu-Gi-Oh Players

I’ve recently started dabbling in the online Yu-Gi-Oh community. The different message boards around share a few common links. The first is the sheer willingness for a few to openly flame others for possessing a different viewpoint. The general attitude seems to be “I’m a better player than you, you’re not worthy of even having an opinion.” The second is the flashiness and general pomp and grandeur of a serious player’s contribution to the forums. I’m sure many of you have been guilty of making fancy layouts for your deck ideas (a waste of time if I’ve ever seen one), posting new thoughts hoping to gain respect from the masses, or writing long essays and articles that can be quite dreary (I plead guilty as charged to this last offense). You’re actually seeking acceptance from your Yu-Gi-Oh playing peers. Everybody wants to be the next Kris Perovic or Theerasak Poonsombat. And many, many players will cheat to do it.

The results are in. Many players cheat. They’ve been cheating since the beginning of Regionals, before the Shonen Jump Era. The different online dueling leagues require full logs for each game; they take cheating that seriously. In fact, many big players online have been discovered to be cheaters, creating firestorms of controversy rivaling that of Thestalos’s (do my Yu-Gi-Oh analogies need work? E-mail feedback at jaelove@gmail.com please!)

The recent fall of Yu-Gi-Oh superstar Emon Ghaenian (one of my best Yu-Gi-Oh friends in real life, from my Southern California region), has struck dismay into the hearts of many. Others still, particularly the snarky type who believe online players are better than the name pros, insist it was obvious all along he cheated. Most are jealous of his success. Few know the man himself. Many fear the Overdose aura. And absolutely none of the writers or posters weighing in on the matter know the man himself well enough to decide if he is a cheater.

So what is it then? Who plays legitimately, and who cheats? I’ve long had a theory that even the very best Yu-Gi-Oh players, at the height of their powers in a particular format, will only top eight two out of four given Shonen Jump Championships, three out of five at the most if they’re scorching hot. You can put forth any rubric, any situation. Matt Peddle in the Scapegoat format, Wilson Luc in the Scapegoat format, Dale Bellido in the aggro format, etc. The very best players simply cannot consistently place in the top eight in every Shonen Jump Championship they enter. Because you have to go x-2 or x-1, it’s almost mathematically impossible to maintain such a winning percentage in such huge fields.

Almost every player who has broken my rule of thumb has turned out to be a cheater or had numerous rumors swirling about them. Emon’s success is nothing short of stunning. He was fixing to be the first player in the USA to place in the top eight of two Nationals Championships in a row. This is quite literally a near impossible feat. The best player in the world could not do such a thing reliably; US Nationals is the hardest event in the world, bar none, including Worlds. Even prior to this Nationals event, Houston had already cemented his legacy as the greatest Yu-Gi-Oh player of all time (next to perhaps T).

However, comparing Emon to T (they’re famous rivals even in Southern California for years by the way), would be the sports equivalent of comparing Barry Sanders to Jim Brown, Dennis Rodman to Bill Russell in rebounding, or even Pete Rose to Ty Cobb. Before T’s resurgence (what a stud muffin), he had dominated the dark era of Yu-Gi-Oh. His spectacular Nationals win (which alone makes him probably the greatest of all time) was during traditional format in 2004. Most of his SJC top eight finishes were prior to the game’s competitive explosion, back when card advantage and advanced concepts were new. Comic Odyssey and Team Savage would simply enter each new city and steam roll the local teams in battles.

Emon shone in a new, more competitive era. This isn’t to knock T; after all, most of my accomplishments (and Team Savage’s) were also closer to the dark age of Yu-Gi-Oh than these recent times. His first top eight finish was at SJC Pomona. However, back then he was a luck sack advantage-only based player who hadn’t developed the ability to convert card advantage to a win. He was the type of player to cycle Tsukuyomi for Magician of Faith into Pot of Greed fifteen times, leading to a deck out. Top California players such as Wilson, T, and Hugo Adame would look and shudder at this brash Team Naruto upstart.

Yet lurking beneath the sweaty forehead was the sharpest intellect the Yu-Gi-Oh world would ever know (slight hyperbole)! Emon would stay up for hours with the best in the game, discussing strategies and learning new concepts. His turning point as a player (in my opinion), came the night before the “East vs West” team battle. This was just prior to his joining Team Overdose, and Wilson Luc, Emon, and myself were the last of the West team to stay up and discuss strategy. As we lay there painting our toenails and listening to Michelle Branch, Emon the world-slaying e-thug was born.

Emon Ghaenian is one of the Greatest

After watching almost all of the top players play when doing coverage of team battles, I have a pretty good sense of who is good and who is not. You can immediately tell good players from great players by the plays they make in certain key situations. Some of the greatest players at their peak have been Kyle Duncan in the recruiter format, Matt Peddle in the Scapegoat format, Evan Vargas in the Scapegoat format, and Anthony Alvarado in the Chaos Sorcerer format during San Francisco.

These players possessed tremendous skill at those time periods. Emon, arguably, trumps them all. Watching him play (if you’re a good player and know what you’re doing) is a stunning spectacle. For example, take a look at his match versus Jason Tan in the USA vs Canada coverage. He makes one of the greatest bluffs I have ever seen. Almost all of his peers, including Kris Perovic, Anthony Alvarado, Max Suffridge, Adam Corn, and others consider him easily one of the top three players in the United States, if not the world.

So why did he have to go and break my heart by cheating? The answer is a lot more complicated than it seems. But first, let me add the disclaimer that nobody knows the true circumstances. Judges can be a shady lot, always looking to take down name players due to jealousy or other factors. In fact, many Yu-Gi-Oh judges (not the level 3 stud muffins who sanction the big events), but the skulking, brooding underlings of the outfit, are desperate for credibility. They like to maintain the aura of knowing it all, and will frequently throw power trip displays at poor players all across the floor.

But if Emon cheated, the best analogy I can draw is to Barry Bonds. Barry Bonds is about to break the home run record. Many believe he is one of the best natural hitters in the history of the game. Prior to his “cheating”, or muscle and weight gain, he had already won multiple Mvps while batting over .300 and hitting 30+ home runs a year. It was only when his average soared and he swatted 73 home runs that his virtues were questioned. Many people forget that Bonds was an all time great even without the steroids. Yet the fact that he used steroids is written, almost plain as day. One of the greatest baseball players in the history of the game cheated nonetheless, and risked his whole legacy.

Emon is one of the best players in the game. He’s probably one of the top three all time. And the man had all the credibility in the world. Yet nobody can tell if he cheated his way to the Shonen Jump victories. Stacked his way into our hearts. If young Johnny, new to the game of Yu-Gi-Oh, chose Emon as his hero, he’ll likely be disappointed. “But I’ve seen him play Johnny. He’s a near perfect player…,” will not be good enough.

If you see a player who never “scrubs out” of events, he’s almost always unquestionably up to no good. History is filled with names of players that tried to bend the rules (or bend Cyber-Stein’s and Megamorphs), and got caught. If you have a son or daughter, or are a youngster yourself, pick a hero who has been known to scrub out on occasion. Good looking stud muffins such as John Jensen (the face of Yu-Gi-Oh as we know it), Anthony Alvarado, Dale Bellido, and others have been known to flop every 50-75% or so of the time. Yet when they actually win or go far in an event, you can cheer whole-heartedly, secure in the knowledge that your Yu-Gi-Oh hero is legitimate.

The moral of the story is, if it’s too good to be true, it probably is. Preposterous events such as winning Nationals two years in a row, making it to Worlds two years in a row, or even top eighting Nationals two years in a row in a major Yu-Gi-Oh country are so mathematically unlikely you can almost assume anyone who does so is a cheater and feel safe about it. For example, if you take a look at the recent European championships, you’ll see that Dario Longo and Adrian Madaj didn’t make it this time around. By all accounts, Madaj is one of the best in the world. Knowing they “scrubbed out” at such an important event makes their previous accomplishments even better.

Yet with someone like Emon, whose pure skills when playing for stakes or even in regionals, are some of the greatest ever seen…. Many players will doubt all of his accomplishments. To be honest, I don’t blame them. Oh how we strain ourselves for credibility. Don’t do it! And stop with those layouts for your decks! You spend way too much time on them! Read a book instead!