Welcome, all, to another edition of Looking at the Past! Today’s article will be looking at one of the most well-known and well-received formats of the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG. This is the format that saw one of the most varied and diverse metagames in recent Yu-Gi-Oh! history, and innovation was everywhere. When we last looked at the past, Chaos was running amok. It was everywhere, in several different forms, but it was still there. With the passage of the September 2006 banlist, Chaos ceased to be. Finally, the Chaos family was benched permanently, and many don’t believe that it’ll be coming back any time soon, and with good reason. The deck was too good, too abused, and too misused. It was a good thing that it was banned.

But in its wake, we have a dilemma. No one knew what there was to run; along with Chaos Sorcerer, Snatch Steal, Thousand-Eyes Restrict and Tsukuyomi were all banned, and the amazing stall card Spirit Reaper was finally limited to one. This was perhaps a mistake in hindsight; several decks cropped up during this format whose reputations precede them, but we’ll have more on that in a minute.

The first Shonen Jump Championship came only two weeks after the banlist, which is not enough time at all to attempt to judge the metagame at the event. For the most part, pro duelists have a pretty keen understanding of what they’ll be up against at any given SJC. They rely on prior experience at past events, coupled with a diverse contact list spanning the country, and a team of other pro duelists that can help assess the metagame and make a decision on what deck to run there. But at Shonen Jump Boston, held on September 16^th, 2006, no one can say they did that.

Instead, duelists turned to the most powerful one-tribute monsters in the game: the Monarchs. Seven of the Top-8 decks were Monarch-based and only one was running an older concept: Keith Gibson, with his Cyber-Stein OTK. The OTK was actually introduced in the previous format, when Stein was first introduced to the mass dueling population, where it gained fame but never had much going for it in terms of support. The deck was deemed too unstable, and was deferred to more experimental players who, in turn, saw mixed results with the deck. It had some Top-8 finishes, but never actually won a tournament. Monarchs, on the other hand, have been known to show results in multiple tournaments. So duelists turned to anything that would win a tournament, and this meant having two things: hand control and field control.

Remember back a couple of articles, when I said that two main cards showed up repeatedly? Well, they’re back, and this time they stick around awhile. Both Zaborg the Thunder Monarch and Dekoichi the Battlechanted Locomotive were ran by multiple duelists in various Jump Championships after the September banlist was released. The main reason why is because Zaborg has the ability to destroy one monster on the field when he is Tribute Summoned successfully, which already gives him a huge advantage over other monsters because he can clear the field and attack on the same turn. That swing in advantage is huge, and many duelists saw it that way in their preparations for Boston.

The other card that was mentioned was Dekoichi. Here is the ultimate draw card; he’s a Machine, meaning he combos with Cyber Phoenix well, and he draws a card upon Flip Summon, making him invaluable. His 1400 ATK and 1000 DEF serve him well, making him both offensive and defensive in decks that call for it. He’s a versatile monster, and during the format was key in providing duelists the hand control they required out of their decks.

These two cards, combined in one deck, served as a reminder to everyone that the basics were everything. Players went back to concepts that are only remembered now by veterans of the game, and utilized them effectively in their search for glory at SJC Boston. It is only fitting, then, that Monarchs won the whole thing, ran by Bobby Chambers. What’s interesting to note is that Lazaro Bellido ran a much more focused Monarch deck than Chambers, but what Bellido had in Monarchs he lost in flexibility. Chambers’ deck was built to withstand multiple decks, and his was more able to adapt than Bellido’s more concentrated Monarch build.

With a deck now firmly entrenched in duelist’s minds, people began to look at what could stop the Monarchs. However, despite some one-off decks (Stein OTK, RFG decks, etc). At one point, Dark World made a mad comeback, with two different Dark World builds making Top-8 at SJC Anaheim in November 2006, but Monarchs still managed to come out on top. It wasn’t until SJC San Jose that Monarchs would be dethroned, and this time by a deck no one was expecting to do well.

Stein OTK finally won a tournament.

It was a fairy-tale moment. The pilot of the deck, David Rodriguez, fought against all odds for the deck to win, even pulling off a win against a Chain-Strike-Burn deck, which was considered an auto-win against Stein OTK at the time. But he pulled through, taking his unique build all the way to the finals in San Jose and winning the entire match in just three turns. It seemed that the dueling world would be thrown on its head again, and it was…only in a surprisingly different way.

I call this format the OTK format because since the banlist was released, duelists were looking for a way to speed up the game and win in even faster ways. With their main speed engine gone (Chaos Sorcerer) and many other forms of stall and control gone (Spirit Reaper at one-per-deck, Snatch Steal banned), it was looking like Monarch Control would sweep the format. However, dedicated duelists found even faster ways of winning the game, including one of the best OTK builds I’ve seen in quite some time: Chimeratech Overdragon. It was a build that utilized Future Fusion, Overload Fusion, and Chimeratech Overdragon to pump him up to virtually infinite ATK points, then crush face. That was the whole point of the build, but its finesse and beauty made it one of the most-feared decks at SJC Orlando in January 2007, and its status would stay that way until the next format debuted.

Monarchs were still prominent in the game, however; their speed and intensity are to this day feared by duelists and spectators alike. It’s difficult to imagine a deck with so much speed, but during this format these decks were debuted, honed, and ran in multiple tournaments. The Monarchs embody what was best in the game: speed, power, control…they did it all, and when used right were (and still are) an effective fighting force. The decks wielded during this format were some of the most varied and unique decks since before the October 2004 banlist, and it was a pleasure to be a player during this time. But I have one more deck that debuted during the last days of the format that I want to quickly skim over…in fact, I’ll just say it in one line:

Marc Glass is solely responsible for the creation of Diamond Dude Turbo.

I’ll explore that deck more in my next article, but anyone who played during that format (March 2007 – September 2007) knows what I’m talking about. It was explosive, it was fast, and it turned the Yu-Gi-Oh! world on its head. Thank you, Marc Glass.

Before I sign off for today, I need to ask you loyal readers a favor: can you send me a legitimate, certified copy of the March 2008 – September 2008 banlist? I need a copy, because that’s the only one I don’t have. It would be much appreciated, because otherwise I couldn’t continue my series of articles, and that wouldn’t be good for anyone.

Stay tuned for more “Looking at the Past,” and if you’d ever like to contact me feel free to do so at anteaus44@hotmail.com.

Thanks,

Anteaus