Pojo's Duel Masters Player Spotlight

Player Spotlight: Christopher Robert Rodgers
Gen Con Indy 2004 Duel Masters Champion

By Christina Page

Take everything you know about Diamond Cutter decks, pitch it into a cardboard box and bury it. Never dig that cardboard box up because the old way to run the deck type is officially dead. The #1 deck at the Gen Con Indy 2004 Duel Masters Championship was a Diamond Cutter deck—so deceptively simple yet surprisingly robust—it proves many people wrong about Light’s viability in the current environment. Christopher Robert Rodgers from Stanton Ohio, a level 1 DCI Judge, piloted his Light Diamond Cutter deck with 4 splashed Terror Pits to the #1 spot. In doing so, Christopher catapulted Diamond Cutter decks into the spotlight.

While it may be hard to believe that a city with about 700 people spawned a Duel Masters Champion, Christopher Rodgers’ winning streak didn’t magically commence at Gen Con. He’s been winning more than enough JDC League events and local tournaments back home in Stanton. Despite having played Duel Masters since the game released this year in March and his past tournament accomplishments, Christopher had some reservations about his chances of winning the Championship event. “I thought my chances were low. I built the deck to beat Blue.” Even though he only had 4 days of testing behind an earlier build of the deck, Christopher stuck with Diamond Cutter because he’s been playing it since Evo-Crushinators of Doom release and enjoys playing the deck.

Christopher’s deck was not the lone Light Diamond Cutter deck at the Championships, but it was the one packing answers to two of the biggest threats in the playing field—Fighter Dual Fang and Crystal Lancer. Two of those answers came in the form of using  Holy Awe to prevent creature evolutions and Gran Gure, Space Guardian to neutralize players relying on Nature’s mana producing behemoth and Water’s unblockable juggernaut. When I asked him what he considered to be his deck’s biggest threats, he quickly stated “Mono-Blue and your deck [Water/Nature]. I didn’t want to play Blue.” Sitting across from an opponent’s battle zone filled with a bunch of Liquid People that can evolve into Crystal Paladin or Crystal Lancer is enough to give any Light player the blues. Then again, he was a Light player running Terror Pit---his “tech” spell. As with all spells in his deck, Christopher could fish out Terror Pits with Laguna, Lightning Enforcer or retrieve them once cast with Phal Eega, Dawn Guardian. With Terror Pits splashed into his deck, suddenly Crystal Lancer was no longer the rowdy guest that couldn’t be made to leave easily. Christopher’s choices for his deck’s blockers, spells, and hitters and the way he used them led him to an undefeated top finish. Not a single opponent was able to win 2 games against him.

Christopher deck’s strategy doesn’t hinge on one specific card such as the deck’s namesake spell Diamond Cutter—though it’s certainly the primary ‘win’ card. The deck’s success also depends on how key cards work together to deploy two immensely powerful pre-Diamond Cutter tactics: (1) setting up the hand with specific spells and (2) field control. Two tactics I jokingly like to refer to as “Search & Destroy.” What probably puzzled some opponents who faced the deck is that Christopher ran no evolutions or double breakers. Ladia Bale, the Light civilization’s scariest blocker-hitter, was left out in favor greater field advantage. The deck’s biggest hitter that could attack players sans Diamond Cutter only packs 4000 power. Even so, his only deck fix that was revealed has nothing to do with adding more firepower—not even more Light cards for that matter. After testing his deck against Wizards of the Coast’s Program Development Manager Damon Edmondson, Christopher told me he was going to “add Lost Soul…take it to 42 cards.” Lost Soul in his deck would be evil. Perhaps that’s why he smiled when he said it.

With or without Lost Soul tucked into the deck, a Diamond Cutter build beacons the question “how did it win the Championship?” But win it did, and often because opponents did exactly what Christopher wanted them to—they broke his shields early. Watching him during a couple of his first round games I noticed that he’d take 2 or even 3 shields hits before sacrificing blockers. This was a player who seemed to love hand advantage at a high cost. But once his hand was ripe with options, he’d unleash a Holy Awe-induced attack that decimated opponents’ battle zones or broke shields with Diamond Cutter. Considering not many players ran blockers of their own, Christopher often had no hurdles to jump over when he went on Diamond Cutter runs.

Christopher ran several different decks at Gen Con’s Duel Masters events prior to settling on his winning build for the big-ticket game. His other decks included a Mono-Light Diamond Cutter, one that was most likely a precursor to his Championship winning build, and a Fire/Darkness/Nature deck that he initially wanted to play in the Championships. He worked feverishly to make his Fire/Darkness/Nature deck work, but he felt the pieces weren’t coming together. The deck type projected to make top 5—Water/Nature—gave it serious problems. Christopher sat down going over possible fixes for the build before he fully resigned himself to play Diamond Cutter. Some time after mulling over his cards he leaned over to me and said: “I should put Terror Pits into my deck. I’ve been thinking about doing it.” No sooner had he finished his sentence he was back to the grind making deck tweaks. He secured 4 copies of Gran Gure, switched up useful hitters, and added 4 copies of that infamous Darkness destruction spell. The final build of the Championship deck was born. 

Before departing Wizard’s gaming area in Hall F of the Indianapolis Convention Center, where minutes before I was knocked to 3^rd place by Christopher, I asked the newly crowned champ if he had any advice to give aspiring duelists. He kindly offered the following tidbit of wisdom, something that undoubtedly paid off big time for him that weekend, “Keep tweaking your deck.”  

Gen Con Indy 2004 Duel Masters Championship 1^st Place Deck