• Pojo Home Page
  
• Message Board
  
• Contact Staff
  

Cloudstrife 189 on Yugioh
The secret to dueling: REVELATION pt. 1
November 25, 2009

This article today presents a question; a question that I have asked many times and one that I cannot ever seem to answer. That question is:

What does it take to win an SJC?

While I still haven’t quite found the “correct” answer, I believe that I’m a little bit closer to finally discovering it.

Welcome to my next article, The secret to dueling: REVELATION pt.1

First, let me fill you guys in on some of my background information before I continue. I’ve been playing the game since the beginning. I have been playing competitively the ENTIRE time. I train/practice/research rulings daily. I RARELY misplay. All the things I talk about in my articles (direct correlation, 7 steps, it’s not the deck…,etc), I have MASTERED! My locals pose no adequate competition. I win/top at almost every regional I currently attend. I attend almost every SJC each year.

Now, as it must appear that I am expressing a really high ego, but let me assure you that I am not. In fact, I’m doing the complete opposite. Because, even with all these “accomplishments”, I HAVE NEVER TOPPED AT A SHONEN JUMP CHAMPIONSHIP!!!

I focus and try to think of some factor of this game that I am missing. I try so hard to remove the “luck” element of the game and put all the responsibility on the player that I am beginning to have doubts. When I lost my first match at the recent SJC Columbus, I was devastated. I started running through a myriad of questions?

-Did I misplay? No
-Did he outplay me? No
-Did I side deck wrong? No
-Is there anything I could have done differently to win? Maybe…
-etc

There were almost tears in my eyes afterwards because I trained so hard to win and I know that the person who defeated me didn’t even want the victory as bad. I literally analyzed, and reanalyzed the entire time until the next match where I continue to lose AGAIN!

Now, this is where depression kicks in. I instantly feel like a failure. I think of all the time/energy/money that I spent on this game and for what? For nothing… I think back to all the people who expected me to do well and to give some weight to all of my articles. I think back at how often I lost in the duels leading up to this event and can barely even remember one. I’m so use to winning on such a regular basis that being defeated so quickly was almost too much to handle. And that is when it happened, the revelation.

I found out that there was something more to this game then just knowing all the rules and having a good deck. There is something more than just knowing what all the top tier decks are and how to side deck effectively. Play testing, researching, and studying just aren’t quite enough. There is another element of this game that I’ve been oblivious of this whole time. However, the sad part is, is that I’m still not quite sure of what it is. Some people call it “luck”, other people call it Destiny or Fate, but I refuse to believe any of that stuff. Or atleast, I did. I put so much emphasize on the player, that I failed to understand the few situations when the player is seriously just S.O.L.(excuse me for lack of a better expression.)

When you see great players like Lazaro Bellido, Jerry Wang or even Ryan Newborn get beat, you have to ask yourself if they really got defeated by the “better player”; and the truth of the matter is, NO, or atleast, not always. They don’t always get beat because they misplayed or because they forgot a ruling. No, that is not the case. Sometimes they just got beat because of the “uncontrollable” factor that a lot of people seem to refer to as “luck.” After going to over 10+ SJCs, I don’t think that I can continue to deny that factor anymore.

However, I’m going to do something strange that I have never done before. I'm going to end this artice incomplete. I am truly at a loss. I want and NEED to hear you guys’ comments before I can continue and conclude this article.

If you guys have any advice, tips, comments, questions or concerns, please post them on here. That way I can finally have some closure and understanding on this confusing and incomplete “REVELATION.”

-Cloudstrife 189