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Dark Paladin's Yu-Gi-Oh! Dimension
Champion Interviews Series
Derrick West - Minnesota
9.14.05

note: Pojo.com is not responsible for however long an interviewee rants
about anything. Please read at own risk.

D.P. -- What is your first and last name?

Derrick -- Derrick West

D.P. -- How old are you?

Derrick -- 18

D.P. -- What city and state do you live in?

Derrick -- St. Paul, Minnesota

D.P. -- How long have you been dueling?

Derrick -- Well, I started collecting cards around the time that PSV was originally released in the United States and played casually, but I didn’t actually start dueling at tournaments until about February of 2004.

D.P. -- What is the current deck type you run?

Derrick -- That is a hard question. I tend to quickly get bored with a deck type and constantly switch between original decks to try new things that people normally wouldn‘t use. Currently, I’m working on a Warrior Rush based on The A. Forces in which you get 3-5 Warriors out to the field in a few turns with Marauding Captain, Revival, or Toon Cannon Soldier with Last Wills. Then boost them with 1-3 The A. Forces and Command Knights for 1 quick assault to finish the game. Then with Mataza the Zapper and Hayabusa Knight’s double attack abilities, they can quickly drain my opponents Life Points.

D.P. -- What is the most significant tournament achievement you have acquired, and when?

Derrick -- Unfortunately, originality doesn’t win you tournaments. The best I’ve really done with an original deck is 7th of a 16 person tournament. But when I  decide to go with a good old fashioned Chaos deck it tends to jump higher like top 5 at least.

D.P. -- What is your favorite card and booster and why?

Derrick -- Well, my favorite card is the soon to be released Exchange of the Spirit. I know that an Exchange of the Spirit isn’t as original as other decks, but it still is something I’ve always wanted to try out for myself. It also makes a nice counter to deck-out decks, which many people miss when looking at it as they only see the First Turn Kill deck based around it.

As for my favorite booster, I would say the upcoming Elemental Energy set. The Dark Realm monsters will be a nice change as well as all the support for Normal OTKs with Same Surname Same Name Same Alliance. Then the other support cards for other themes such as Elemental Heroes, Ojamas, Cores, Levels, etc. This has some support for older decks with little support as well as new themes such as the Dark Realm and the Water Dragon. It will be interesting to see how this set will change the game along with the new ban being released.

D.P. -- What are your thoughts on this summers tins?

Derrick -- Well, they aren’t too great. Dark Magician Girl is getting too many releases and it was upsetting to me to see it released yet again. I would of rather seen a new promo that hasn’t been released outside of Japan. I really want to see Marshmallon, Sattelite Cannon, Sphere Bomb, Curse of Vampire, etc. There are so many that need to be released, yet they weren’t. The only decent tin I see is Rocket Warrior. Its searchable be Sangan and Reinforcement of the Army. Then it helps weaker monsters take out your opponents stronger monsters. I can see it being used in several decks, not too many, but it seems to be the most useable tin.

D.P. -- What do you believe is the biggest problem in the metagame today?

Derrick -- Just like anyone will tell you, the lack of originality. Its funny how many decks are exactly the same with a change of like 2 cards. I mean, Chaos is a great deck type and won’t deny that, but many people don’t try to change their decks outside of coping winning decks. I see many people just looking at the worlds decks or other winning decks and using their ideas and not trying any of their own.

D.P. -- What do you believe can/should be done to fix said problem?

Derrick -- Well, very little can actually be done, because you can’t control people. Perhaps not releasing winning decks to the public, but that cause other problems as well. Maybe even updating the ban list more often would help some as well. Maybe if the ban list was changed a week after major events or maybe just more often like once every 3 months. Sure, it may seem harsh, but it would constantly change the game, which just may help.

D.P. -- Do you believe the new ban list will help or hurt the game and why?

Derrick -- Personally, I like the new OCG ban and I hope that the ban either stays the same or has very few changes that should have been done anyways, and I hope that Kevin, UDE and Konami can make up their minds about changing the United States ban and release the information about it soon.

As for the OCG ban, there are only 2 cards I don’t like. The return on Dark Hole wasn’t that good of an idea. The mass removal of Dark Hole was too abused and deserved to remained banned. I also feel that Cyber Jar deserved to be banned in order to stop the Cyber Mill decks since they seem to want to stop all the one turn kill decks and cheap cards and the Cyber Mill deck is one of those cheap decks.

Other than those they made some really good choices. They stopped discarding abuse with Sinister’s ban and Night Assailant being Limited. Chaos is now barely alive with only Chaos Sorcerer left. The whole Scapegoat Control and Thousand Eyes Restrict Control are now being controlled. Not as much flip effect abuse with Book of Moon and Tsukuyomi being limited. Then they decided to kill fusion abuse with Metamorphosis being limited. They made some very good choices.