As you can see, this is an extremely defensive deck. The whole purpose is to get Exodia. Period. I never had to use the side deck! I even practiced at home against a friend, and told him to put in a Robbin' Goblin, White Magical Hats, and 2 Card Destructions. I needed the practice after playing with a beatdown deck for 3 weeks. I lost to my friend at home once, but that was a healthy loss.

The Tournament--25 participants/$3 fee/$75 store credit, $50 for 1st, $25 for second. Set up in Field of 32 bracket form, byes were given by roll of dice. Too bad for me, no 1st round off. Japanese cards allowed if released in America.

This round I was a little nervous, but it only took about 8 or 9 turns to get Exodia.I let him attack my search monsters, and used Trap Holes strategically on his other monsters. I'm up one duel.

This round I took only about 500 pts. life damage total. Both duels were about the same, his deck having no theme. He would attack my search monsters, or anything else I had out. The only weird thing was he played a Mysterious Puppeteer in the second duel, and by the time I got Exodia, he had about 12,900 life points. Whoopee! I won.

This was an intense battle! He had the deck staples, the great Magics, La Jinns, Neos, 7 Colored Fish... good deck. I took considerable damage, but with my deck, I have to. In the first duel, I didn't lose too many life points, but it took well over half my deck to get Exodia(25-30 turns.) His best weapon was Just Desserts, and he played one once I had four monsters out. I won, but not without a scare.

In round two, the Just Desserts kept coming. This time, he played two on the same turn! 3 monsters for me= 3000 LP damage! Ouch! Once again, this was a long stall round, with him chipping away at my life points. I won, but with only 1200 LP.

This round almost destroyed me. An even more aggressive deck. The first duel I stalled and stalled, his main strategy was using his Swords. That really didn't work against a deck that doesn't attack, so I used my Man Eater bug to kill off my own search monsters each time the Swords flipped them over. That was a bad idea kind of, because I was eliminating my own monsters for him. I won the first duel, but not by much. After the duel, he asked me to count my cards in front of him. No problem.

The second duel was all his. I couldn't get the right cards, and he Heavy Stormed my Swords, and attacked for huge chunks of life points each turn. I think I lost after about 7 or 8 turns.

Duel 3 was my near down fall. A long stall round again, filled with Heavy Storms, Dark Holes, Trap Holes, and him knocking me all the way to 700 LP. I started using my Magic Jammers in this duel, making sure I had a discard in my hand besides my Exodia pieces, of course. That was hard to do, because it sometimes meant keeping a monster like Magician Of Faith in my hand, but more importantly, one less monster on the field. On the last move, he used a Dark Hole. It knocked off a Sangan, and as I was searching for my final piece, he laid down a Giant Soldier of Stone and declared an attack. 1300 ATK, 700 LP left... but the controversy was what happens first, my search or his battle phase? It was determined in the rules he played his magic, so my search happens before we went any further, and once a player has all 5 Exodia pieces, that is faster than anything, so I was declared the winner.

This duel was by far the longest duel I've ever had. By that time everybody in the friggin' store knew of my Exodia deck, including this guy. I lost to him a couple of weeks before with my beat down deck, so I offered to split the store credit with him, to which he politely declined. SO, round 1. Filled with the best strategies in the game so far, I used my Magic Jammers on his Flutes, Trap Holes on his Lord of D.'s, and a Fake Trap on his Heavy Storm. I won the first duel by search monsters, and actually Monster Reborning them to the field to use them again. I'm up one duel.

Duel two took a long time. I started keeping my Seven Tools in my hand as my Magic Jammer discard, since I had never used it . A long stall round, until he used Lord of D./Flute/Blue Eyes a couple of times in the duel with me having no defenses. Duel 2 goes to him.

Final duel-- More of the same, a long developing duel, not much attacking, because the strategy seemed to be, wipe me out in one move, which worked against my previous deck greatly. The final blow was when he didn't want to, but attacked my Sangan which I had Reborned, so it was face up defense. That allowed me to get my last piece. The winner!!!!!!

It was a great trading day for me, getting a Time Wizard, a Gaia the Dragon Champion, and for my store credit, my last secret rare, Tri-Horned Dragon. I now have all four American ones. Happy Dueling!