U.S. National Championship for the Yu-Gi-Oh GameBoy
July 2006
Jason Bunch

 

Hi there, I'm Jason Bunch. You may recognize me from the Card of the Day reviews over on the VS portion of this site. This past weekend, I was fortunate enough to be one of 16 competitors selected to go to San Diego Comic-Con and compete in this year's U.S.
National Championship for the Yu-Gi-Oh GameBoy game.

Since the two qualifying rounds consisted of a series of online quizzes, I was pretty nervous about building and playing a deck against the other players.

Compounding that was the fact that the GBA game contains the OCG cards that haven't been released in the TCG over here yet, so I didn't have any practical experience against them. Also, I work 40 hours a week, so I didn't have as much time to spend playing the game and unlocking cards, so all I had built by the time I got my Top 16 confirmation was a lame beatdown deck that used Skilled Dark Magician as my beatstick.

For those of you familiar with the game, you get Duel Points for winning duels, then spend those points on packs, and get random cards in those packs. They have all of the regular booster packs through Shadow of Infinity, but then they also have special theme packs, and those packs are where most of the OCG cards are hiding. The best cards are in a pack that can only be unlocked by winning 20 duels in a row in Survival Duel mode. I tried a couple of different strategies to get the 20 wins necessary, and eventually wound up cobbling together a Final Countdown deck with some lifegain in it. It worked pretty well, but I still couldn't manage to beat the Survival Duel (also because I didn't often have the 2 hours or so needed to win 20 games in a row). The game allows you to "buy" singles by entering the 8-digit code from a specific card, then paying a pre-determined amount of DP for the card. Most of them are pretty expensive, up to 13000 DP for a card like Mirror Force, and so it's usually easier to just buy packs and hope to pull the cards you need. However, I was running out of time, and I needed some staple cards like Graceful Charity and Scapegoat. As it turns out, winning a game against the computer with Final Countdown gives you between 2500 and 3000 DP, so all I'd need is 3 or 4 wins to afford some of the cards I needed to complete my tournament deck. The next couple of weeks became like a second job; playing Final Countdown over and over again against the computer opponent, then spending the points on what I needed. Eventually, I'd played so many games with Final Countdown, that I decided to run that deck at Nationals.

I'd read Twinsen21's report on the 2005 Nationals, and so I was mainly concerned with stopping Cyber Stein OTK decks. I decided to cut most of my lifegain, and focus on chainable traps like Waboku and Thunder of Ruler, and defense monsters like Spirit Reaper and Marshmallon. The Nimble Momongas and lone copy of Draining Shield would allow me to pay the 2000LP for Final Countdown in case I took a lot of early damage, or had to use Solemn Judgment early. I also had Metamorphosis in there in order to bring out Thousand-Eyes Restrict and lock down the field even more. Flute of Summoning Kuriboh was a late choice that I made the night before the competition (at about
4 in the morning when I couldn't sleep), and Winged Kuriboh almost made the cut to go with it, but I decided to stick with 3X Kuriboh instead. Wave-Motion Cannon gave me an alternate (and quicker) win condition for Games 2 and 3, when my opponent would be siding in plenty of S/T removal. Ancient Lamp was for Cyber Stein OTK, and Metal Reflect Slime could be Metamorphosis'd into my own Cyber End Dragon.

On Saturday evening, I got to meet the other players for the first time. I was seated near Jason Lee (the eventual winner) and his sister Jamie, Ben (TmmyCrtmn) and his friend Kevin, and Brendan (BeaverTeeth) and his dad. Wyman from Konami gave us the rundown for tomorrow's tournament, and Cheryl and Tracy passed out our badges and promo cards. This year's player promo was a Super Rare version of Seiyaryu, and UDE hooked us up with some Sheep Tokens also. After dinner, a few of us checked out the convention, then we headed back to the hotel and I crashed out...

...for about 4 hours. It wasn't really nerves, but for some reason, I could just not go to sleep. I spent a couple of hours thinking about possible matchups and reworking my sidedeck in my mind, then eventually gave up on sleep and listened to Mitch Hedburg on my laptop until my wakeup call. a cup of coffee and a Mountain Dew (breakfast of champions!) later, and then Phil and I met with the rest of the players and guests in the hotel lobby. We took the trolley to the convention center, and our sweet exhibitor badges got us into the building an hour early. We all headed to the Konami booth, and after some final instructions from Wyman, we paired up, sat down, and prepared to play.

Round 1: Me vs Keith (Limiter13)

The two VS players in the competition get paired up in the first round...conspiracy? Nah, just luck of the draw. Actually, I snuck a peek at the pairing, and I was seeded 4th going into the tournament, based on our online test scores. I am so smart, S-M-R-T. I never play without a playmat, since I'm all superstitious, so I rolled out the swank judge mat I got for judging at SJC Arlington the previous weekend. He rolls out one of his mats, we link up GameBoys, and it's on like Donkey Kong!

A quick aside: Since I am older and presumable more evil than the younger players, I decided to play some mindgames. I spent all of Saturday casually mentioning my super-awesome Destiny Board deck that I would be playing the next day. Everybody saw through my blatant lie, of course, but I was hoping that they'd put me on anything but an alternate win conditon deck. I also named my deck "Stein OTK" (my beatdown deck is named "Exodia", too), as an additional way to spread confusion and mis-information. I told Kevin Tewart about my little bit of misdirection, and he LOL'd. It was awesome.

So we get to the "coin toss" screen, and Kevin can see that my deck name is "Stein OTK", and I hear him groan a little bit. I win the coin toss and choose to go first. He asks "Did you get it?", to which I reply "Yup", then proceed to slap down a copy of Final Countdown. He groans in a slightly different way, and I set a couple of cards and end my turn. He was playing a Gadget deck, which would have torn through most other decks he'd have played in the first round...but not mine. My game plan was pretty simple:

Stall and Hope He Didn't Draw Heavy Storm. Luckily, both of those things happened, and I survived 20 turns to take Game 1. Sidedecking for Game 2 was interesting, I hadn't thought about playing against Gadgets, so I had no idea what to put in. I decided on a couple of Wave-Motion Cannons, Metal Reflect Slime, some Kuribohs, and Ceasefire. i took out Nimble Momongas, because of his Skull Descovery Knight, and also Draining Shield and a Nightmare's Steelcage. I think anyway, my memory is hazy.

Anyways, this game I managed to play an early Wave-Motion Cannon, and then got a tremendous amount of help from Lady Luck, because he didn't draw any of the S/T removal he put in, and 8 turns later I was able to get the win and advance. At this point, I was feeling pretty good, and I was actually starting to believe that I could get one more win and qualify to
go to Japan and play in the World Championships.

Round 2: Me vs Patrick

We were both pretty nervous, what with us both being one win from a free trip to Japan. He had no idea what I was running, and I'd overheard enough of his conversation with another player to know that he wasn't running OTK, which made me happy. He had about the same reaction as Kevin did to seeing "Stein OTK" on the screen, and about the same reaction with I Graceful'd into another first turn Final Countdown.

He summoned a Gadget, and I was all "hey, I just won against a Gadget deck", so I was feeling pretty much on top of the world. His Gadgets were getting under Messenger of Peace pretty easily, but then Gravity Bind came down and slowed him down enough for me to get to Turn 20 and the Game 1 victory. Sidedecking followed, and I went a little heavier on Kuribohs than I had in Round 1. I got another early Final Countdown, but he got an early Jinzo out, and all of a sudden I was in trouble. He hit a Nimble Momonga with Nobleman, but I got lucky with Spirit Reapers at the right times. I had a handful of useless traps, my lone copy of Metamorphosis, and a Flute of Summoning Kuriboh on the field. He had double Cyber Dragon and Jinzo, and a facedown of his own. I'll pause, while those who are better than I am at this game can figure out what I did wrong.

Okay, so we roll around to Turn 20. I have my Reaper in defense mode, 4700 LP, and I'm already picking out clothes for the trip to Japan. He topdecks DD Warrior Lady and sends her into Spirit Reaper, removing both cards from play. He then attacks with a Cyber Dragon, expecting to be able to make three direct attacks for the win. I flip my Flute of Summoning Kuriboh, thinking that I can pitch it for this attack, and that Jinzo and Cyber Dragon #2 will only be able to do 4500 points of damage. Well, woe is me, as his facedown card is Limiter Removal, and his Jinzo dances all over my face. Game 3 was academic, as his Cyber Dragons hit me for obscene amounts of damage and I lose before Final Countdown can hit double digits. Patrick played some great games though, and saving Limiter was a great move.

Now, how could I have possibly won Game 2? Well, there were three ways. The easiest way would have been to play Winged Kuriboh in my sidedeck, then I could have Flute'd one to the field, Cyber Dragon destroys it, and then I take no more damage. The mental way would have been to let him attack with his first two monsters, hoping that he wouldn't flip Limiter, then Flute a Kuriboh to my hand during the last attack and discard it for the win. However, the way I would have preferred to win would have been to REMEMBER THAT KURIBOH IS A ONE STAR MONSTER!!!!

Remember, I had Metamorphosis in hand for a few turns, so I could have brought out Thousand-Eyes Restrict and absorbed Jinzo. Not only would I have stopped him from attacking, but then the handful of traps I had would have actually been useful for later in the game.

Unfortunately for me, I realized this about ten minutes after the game was over, when Phil and I were waiting in line for overpriced convention food.

Still, I came within one turn of taking Final Countdown to the World Championships...not bad for a 29 year old judge. There's always next year...and I just might rebuild Final Countdown if I make it to next year's tournament.

In closing, this was an amazingly fun weekend. I got to go to Comic-Con (i.e. Nerd Prom) for free, and bring my friend Phil with me. I got to be in San Diego during the hottest weekend in the history of San Diego, which is bad beats, but that's what hotel pools are for. Big thanks to Wyman and the Konami guys, Cheryl and Tracy for keeping us out of trouble in San Diego, the guy sitting between Phil and I on the Phoenix to Dallas flight who switched seats so that Phil and I could have an empty seat between us, and the people who covered my hours at work so I could go.

Bad beats to 8 dollar movie tickets and triple digit temperatures. Remember kids, be good or be good at it.


Nationals Decklist:

Dandylion
Gear Golem The Moving Fortress
2X Magician of Faith
Marshmallon
Mask of Darkness
3X Nimble Momonga
Sangan
3X Spirit Reaper
Treeborn Frog
Tsukuyomi
3X Final Countdown
Graceful Charity
Heavy Storm
Level Limit - Area B
Lightning Vortex
Magical Mallet
Messenger of Peace
Metamorphosis
2X Nightmare's Steelcage
Scapegoat
Swords of Revealing Light
Draining Shield
2X Gravity Bind
Mirror Force
3X Solemn Judgment
Threatening Roar
3X Thunder of Ruler
Torrential Tribute
3X Waboku

Side Deck:

Ancient Lamp
3X Kuriboh
Mobius the Frost Monarch
Snatch Steal
3X Flute of Summoning Kuriboh
2X Wave-Motion Cannon
Ceasefire
Metal Reflect Slime
2X Threatening Roar

Fusion Deck:

Cyber End Dragon
Cyber Twin Dragon
Gatling Dragon
Thousand-Eyes Restrict