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The National Duelist League
By Pook
02.01.05

It’s that time again – time for the yearly tradition of two teams of burly men to duke it out on the gridiron for the ultimate prize – a gaudy ring and a trip to Disneyworld. Yup, it’s time for the Super Bowl.

The Super Bowl is one of the biggest television events of the year (especially this year, when people will be looking for a repeat of last year’s half-time festivities), but why should sweaty jocks get all of the fun?

As you all know, I tend to get these ideas for expanding the world of Yu-Gi-Oh! At one point, I suggested a Pro-Tour Circuit, but now, I’ve set my sights even higher. What I’m pitching today is a full-fledged legion of duelists, working as a team, in what will surely become the greatest organized competition ever – the National Duelist League (NDL). Here’s what I’m thinking…
Teams will consist of anywhere between 8 and 15 duelists (you always need 2nd string), each with a home city and mascot, i.e. the Philadelphia Harpies, the Phoenix Inpachi, the Seattle Levia Dragons, the Los Angeles Dragons, etc. There will be an Eastern Division and a Western (for now, things have to start small by sticking with one country – as the league grows, more and more countries will have divisions as well). Matches will be between two teams, each choosing 10 duelists per match (5 side players). Duelists may have any kind of deck they want (in accordance with NDL Ban/Restriction Guidelines), and may only use one kind of deck – if a player chooses to change his or her deck (this is a co-ed league), it must be the only pro-deck that they own (this means that a player can’t have 5 decks registered with the league at one time – if a player had a Water deck and wants to switch to a Fire deck, they must disband the Water deck and create the Fire deck – same cards can be used in the new deck, but it may be their only deck). This would prevent teams from having a deck for any situation, plus it keeps the action similar to that of the anime.

The way matches work is similar to most tournaments – the ten entrants from one team will face the 10 from the opposing team, each player playing one player from the other team, making for 10 opening duels, all best two out of three. For every victory, the player who wins will receive 1 point for his or her team. After the first round, the 4 players from each side with the most wins will move onto the following round – in the case of more than 4 players having the same winning score, the team coach, along with the rest of the team, will decide the 4 to move on (this adds a lot of strategy to the game play). For the second round, each of the 4 players on one team will duel another member of the opposite team, just like in round 1. Again, each victory gains 1 point for the winner’s team. The top players move on to the finals, but only 2 from each side.
The final round will be a 2-on-2 duel, where the winning team will receive 5 points – this means that even the losing team of the finals can still win the match if the team has more points than the other. Here’s an example for a whole match:

The Philadelphia Harpies are dueling the Los Angeles Dragons at Blue Eyes Stadium in downtown LA. The Harpies have picked their 10 players, as have the Dragons. After the first round, the Harpies scored 9 points – three players won (2 points each), three players won 1 match (1 point each), and four players lost. The Dragons had seven wins, 1 player with a 1 match win, and 2 players lost, totaling 15 points.

In round two, the Harpies came back with three victories, and the fourth player managed to win a round, making 7 points for this round, 16 total. The Dragons had 3 shutouts and 1 win- 2 points for the round, 17 total.

In the final round of play, the two player from the Dragons won the first match, bringing their score to 22. Round two went to the Harpies, making their score 21. It came down to the last round, where at the last second, the Harpies pulled off a devastating Triple Ecstasy Spark, beating the Dragons in the final score 26 to 22. Wow, what a game.

And there you go. Each week, teams play all over the country, until the end of the season nears and the top ranked teams play in the finals, fighting for the 2 spaces in the Duelist of the Rose Bowl…only kidding. The big game would be called the Millennium Cup, where the winning team would house the trophy, the Millennium Trophy – sure, it isn’t a real Millennium Item, but what else was it going to be called?

Sure, this isn’t going to happen, but in a world where sports stars are idolized, can’t a guy dream for a minute or two? I’d sure like to see this happen, and I’d be there every weekend cheering on the Los Angeles Dragons (even if they did lose…).

Just a reminder, if you’d like to vote for the Art Contest Winner, be sure to send your email before this Saturday, February 5th, at 12:00pm (noon) Pacific Standard Time – see the article “Happy Duel Year” for entrants and information. The winner will be announced shortly after, and we’ll finally have a winner! Until then, happy dueling!