It’s rather fitting that the 50^th article sees me returning to the game as a relative outsider. After years of writing for various websites that provide cutting edge Yu-Gi-Oh content, it’s obvious that the environment has changed.

It’s impossible to determine the impact of Yu-Gi-Oh as a product. Shonen Jump Championship figures have generally held consistent since the onset of the event. Less populated locations away from the coasts generally invite fewer players, whereas the big cities such as Los Angeles and Philadelphia hold numbers nearing the thousand mark. And because the old television show is no longer around, it’s hard to tell how much “new blood” the card game attracts from GX tie-ins and such.

I’m going to assume that the number of players in the game is either on a noticeable decline, remaining steady, or boosted ever so slightly. This isn’t really a hard theory, but rather a result of talks with Pojobill about the market for online Yu-Gi-Oh content, talks with merchandise distributors (while working with Hugo Adame on our own fledgling business), and looking at products. It seems the public is sick of a few commonly recurring themes.

That’s a whole other subject I’d like to get into in another article. For the moment, however, I want to assess the competitive side of things. Most of the famous names in competitive Yu-Gi-Oh at the moment are no strangers to the big stage. Other than new hotshots such as Adam Corn, many of the big players have been at the top for years. T, Fili Luna, Shane Scurry, Anthony Alvarado, Paul Levitin, the Bellido brothers, Matt Peddle, and others who you constantly see during Metagame coverage have stayed near the top for a long period of time.

There are a few reasons for this. The first is that the game itself doesn’t provide much incentive for becoming one of the best (it’s not really supposed to, seeing as how it’s derived from a children’s game). Most competitive sports and even games such as Chess provide ample initiative for people to improve. Ideas are created to challenge the metagame, since rewards can range in the tens of thousands of dollars, or more.

You’ll never see a large group of  players or strategies dominating the top fields of actual incentive-laden competition. For example, in games like Starcraft, which has a huge cult following in Korea and pays hundreds of thousands of dollars to the top, or Chess, the top of the field is constantly shifting. Sure you have a few unique, brilliant minds that can dominate the competition for even decades. But you’ll never be able to transport an entire group of players over a two year period like you can with Yu-Gi-Oh.

These players should be admired, should be praised in websites such as Pojo, and elevated within this field because they’re playing simply for the love of the game, and for “cred” and acknowledgement from their peers. I think it’s a pretty awesome thing how a 13 year old in Boston, for example, who doesn’t even know who Manny Ramirez is and doesn’t care, cheers for a black Yu-Gi-Oh star such as Paul Levitin from the slums of New York City.

The lack of cutting edge developments at the game, no research labs devoted to mathematical analysis, has allowed most of the same players to stay comfortable at the top. I can name a dozen names that you’ll have known from the first Shonen Jumps that are still considered top players. A lot of them share a few winning traits that I’ve noticed over the years. Let’s count them down and analyze.

Aside: One of the reasons I wanted to return to writing on Pojo, by the way, is the complete buffoonery that is going on in the internet writing community. It bothers me how writers with no experience at the top level of Yu-Gi-Oh try to feign as if they do. I’d love to take strategy advice from someone such as Matt Peddle, who has accomplished some genuine achievements in this game, or a lot of the VS. System writers (who were hired for a reason). Or, on the other hand, I’d love to read fun articles written from more casual perspectives (with no self-promoting or fradulent activity) that are well-worded and entertaining. However, I don’t think articles from names I’ve never seen in a Shonen Jump day 2 on topics such as “elevating your game” or “the state of the metagame” are necessary. They project such a first-hand, confident tone that you’d simply assume the writers would have experience with the topics they’re dealing with. More on this later, but let’s move on for now.

Traits of Top Yu-Gi-Oh Players (Try to Incorporate these into your Own Game)

5. Intelligence- I’m a firm believer in a person’s given intelligence quotient. This doesn’t mean I believe that people who read books, study a lot, or do well in school are the smartest. Rather, I think most people have a certain amount of intelligence that can’t really be measured. It manifests itself in different ways, and often those type of people can do well at different things.

Players such as Emon, Wilson Luc, and others aren’t getting straight A’s and going to Harvard. But they are extremely intelligent; you can tell by looking at their sharp, gorgeous eyes while they make decisions. Yu-Gi-Oh is a simple game to learn, and rather simple to master as well. Even if you don’t feel you’re the sharpest knife in the drawer, it’s quite easy to become good at the game. Players that excel in other pursuits, such as Magic: The Gathering, or Chess, can easily pick up the game and learn many of the nuances in a few days.

If you play enough while thinking about the game intelligently, your game will improve. This goes hand in hand with the second important trait.

4. Dedication- You can indeed go from a decent, or even terrible, player to a seasoned professional. I’ve seen it happen with numerous people, from Emon to Adam Corn to many others. You do so by playing a lot of games, watching players that are better than you, and playing with players that are better as well.

I don’t think there are very many players who have more raw hours put into Yu-Gi-Oh playing than Emon and Wilson Luc. Coincidentally, the two are easily on the list of the ten best Yu-Gi-Oh players of all time. They’re both machines who, at their peak, played dozens of hours of the game a week.

I’m not saying you should do this. In fact, it’d be ridiculously terrible to do so. But try to analyze your plays in the course of a game. Understand card advantage, understand why duels end up the way they do, and try to make your games meaningful. It’s kind of pointless to play a dozen matches over YVD, lose 8 of them, and simply not gain anything from the process.

3. Maturity and Level-Headedness- Most players adopt a misplaced confidence that leads to ruin. There are very few players who will admit “I lost to that player because he or she is better.” In fact, there are very few who will even admit “I lost that particular game because the other player played better.” The only time you’ll see a player doing that is when they lose to a big name.

Many players I know, including most of my former teammates, would grow disheartened after a loss and “go on tilt.” This trait is shared by many, many different players. However, because of the way the swiss rounds go, it’s extremely terrible to let one loss affect your play.

In most cases, you’re only knocked out of a Shonen Jump day two by losing one match. After that, you can lose another one and still reach a top sixteen spot. The proper time to grow sad-faced like a panda would be after you drop second match (if early in the rounds), or third match (later in the rounds). Yet many players I know have dropped out of the tournament at x-2, or played completely terrible after even one loss.

Let me tell you a dirty little secret about myself. Sometimes, when it’s late at home and nobody’s around…………………..

I realize that I’ve never gone 4-0 at a Shonen Jump Championship. I personally have two top four finishes in about twelve or so events, have been knocked out in the last round of three more, and have never started a tournament 4-0. Never, ever, started a Shonen Jump event at 4-0. I’ve always lost to some ridiculous deck such as Gravekeeper’s, Ben Kei, or other such strategy to start early with one loss.

Many times, I’d be steaming with righteous fury. Yet I never quit after that loss. Most of my Shonen Jump runs then ended with seven or eight consecutive wins, followed by either another lucksacking for the final round, or a win. I guarantee I’ve experienced nastier stories than you, worse turns of fortune, and for bigger stakes. Don’t lose heart, be a Sam Gamgee, not a Frodo Baggins.

2. Humility- Nothing upsets me more than a fool who treats other players with no respect. Even the very best players do, with surprising regularity, treat their fans and other players with incredible amounts of respect. They’ll be soft spoken, shake hands, and never visibly swear or stew in the presence of others.

Yet I see numerous players online and at events who think they’re magically part of an elite club. This is the “no scrub club.” Here, once you join (usually self-inducted), you’re suddenly allowed to call every other player a scrub! In fact, they seem to lose their humane values, and just become faceless people for you to berate and slander.

My first response when I hear a number of “bad beat” stories about a “lucksack scrub who just topdecked Pot of Avarice into Thestalos, discarding my Snatch for game” is always the same. I want to tell them, “I highly doubt you’re good enough to be complaining about another player in such a manner,” but bite my tongue.

So let me say it now. Unless you’re confident that you played a game perfectly (and very few players are), or you did other things correctly but still lost, don’t waste your breath on negative energy. Let me offer you a few stories of what happened to me in some of the biggest matches of my career:

1) At SJC Las Vegas, I was 7-1 and matched up with a respectful gentleman in my last round of swiss. We were moved to the Metagame table late (we had already seated ourselves at the usual table). Because Metagame was new to coverage, time wasn’t added to the clock and we started fifteen minutes in. I took the first game, but was then faced against his aggro-happy Enraged Battle Ox trample deck. He pulled off Fiber Jar three times in the next two games, leading to a scenario where I had six cards in hand (including Spirit Reaper), Snatch Steal, and Trap Dustshoot (he had no more monsters) versus his Berserk Gorilla and naked backfield. Unfortunately, since time was called I lost an easy third game I had in the bag.

2) At SJC Houston, I was faced up against T in round 4 and my teammate Hugo in round 6. Both losses knocked me out of the running. And in both matches, I lost 2-1 to double Pot of Greed/Delinquent Duo combos in the opening hands.

3) At both SJC Charlotte and SJC Seattle, I was knocked out in the finals and the quarterfinals by two extremely good players who both won with double Pot of Greed/Delinquent Duo combinations. They were literally unwinnable games no matter what combination of moves I made, due to the sheer luck and misfortune.

4) At SJC Canada, I was playing my good friend Kyle Duncan in the last round. He squeezed out game 2, and game 3 went to time. We had four turns total. By the end of my third turn (and his final turn coming up), I had Giant Orc in defense position versus his one card in hand. I was at 8000, he was at 5800. He drew to two cards in hand, played Cyber Dragon, then Zaborg, and won by 200 life points. No combination of cards would have won the game for him, since Giant Orc’s 2200 attack points is far higher than any other normal summon in the game, and served as a defensive blocker.

Four losses that easily approach the scope of any “bad beat” story in the game, and I survived. I’m sure you can too.

1. Confidence- Now this is an obvious one. Confidence has become such a cliché. But I’m not really talking about confidence the way it’s generally mentioned. Sure, you need it to play well and believe in yourself and (insert sappy message here). I’m talking about a different kind of confidence.

The very best Yu-Gi-Oh players are an extremely confident lot. I’m not talking about the solid players with respectable showings at an event. I’m talking about the best of the best, the cream of the crop. This enables them to play the very best game possible. And in fact, to become the best you have to have the killer mentality of a Michael Jordan or a Cassius Clay. If I took an experiment, doing something such as taking a committee of

Anthony Alvarado, Theerasak Poonsombat, Emon Ghaneian, Matt Peddle, Fili Luna, and Dale Bellido into the same room and privately asked them “Who is the Best,” I can guarantee they’d all answer their own name. Note, there’s a huge difference between publicy denigrating your peers (I’m better than you) to their faces, and believing with confidence privately that you are the best.

Most of the best players in Yu-Gi-Oh have the confidence that they’ll never lose on pure skill alone. Certainly, they can be outplayed in certain spots. But if an apocalyptic Yu-Gi-Oh playing alien race came to Earth and challenged my committee to pick one player, they’d probably all choose themselves first. It’s a necessary quality.

Back when I played and toured the states with Team Savage, I was a supremely confident player (to the point of arrogance, many have argued time and time again). My teammates felt the exact same way, and there was always an unspoken idea that each of us felt we were the best player, while being quick to add we respected our teammates as pros. When we travelled to Houston, Hugo Adame lost to a young internet upstart known as Belthazar, or Ryan Cerda, in swiss. After that loss, Hugo played Ryan five matches in a row for stakes, smashing him each time to impress upon him who was the better player. At that year’s nationals, I took special pride in meeting and smashing all of the internet players who were talking big games online.

Confidence is the most important trait you can have.

Concluding Thoughts

I love this site because I can write about whatever subject strikes my mind at the time. I just recently got back from Australia, so expect to see more frequent output. I might also start doing Card of the Day, and get started on a blog. E-mail me at Jaelove@gmail.com, and thanks for reading fifty articles if you’ve stuck through it from the beginning!