Pojo's Yu-Gi-Oh! news, tips, strategies and more!

 
DeathJester


Card Game
Card of the Day
TCG Fan Tips
Top 10 Lists
Banned/Restricted List
Yu-Gi-Oh News
Tourney Reports
Duelist Interviews

Featured Writers
Baneful's Column
Anteaus on YGO
General Zorpa
Dark Paladin's Dimension
Retired Writers

Releases + Spoilers
Booster Sets (Original Series)
LOB | MRD | MRL | PSV
LON | LOD | PGD | MFC
DCR | IOC | AST | SOD
RDS | FET
Booster Sets (GX Series)
TLM | CRV | EEN | SOI
EOJ | POTD | CDIP | STON
FOTB | TAEV | GLAS | PTDN
LODT
Booster Sets (5D Series)
TDGS | CSOC | CRMS | RBGT
ANPR | SOVR | ABPF | TSHD
STBL | STOR | EXVC
Booster Sets (Zexal Series)
GENF | PHSW | ORCS | GAOV
REDU | ABYR | CBLZ | LTGY
NUMH | JOTL | SHSP | LVAL
PRIO

Starter Decks
Yugi | Kaiba
Joey | Pegasus
Yugi 2004 | Kaiba 2004
GX: 2006 | Jaden | Syrus
5D: 1 | 2 | Toolbox
Zexal: 2011 | 2012 | 2013
Yugi 2013 | Kaiba 2013

Structure Decks
Dragons Roar &
Zombie Madness
Blaze of Destruction &
Fury from the Deep
Warrior's Triumph
Spellcaster's Judgment
Lord of the Storm
Invincible Fortress
Dinosaurs Rage
Machine Revolt
Rise of Dragon Lords
Dark Emperor
Zombie World
Spellcaster Command
Warrior Strike
Machina Mayhem
Marik
Dragunity Legion
Lost Sanctuary
Underworld Gates
Samurai Warlord
Sea Emperor
Fire Kings
Saga of Blue-Eyes
Cyber Dragon

Promo Cards:
Promos Spoiler
Coll. Tins Spoiler
MP1 Spoiler
EP1 Spoiler

Tournament Packs:
TP1 / TP2 / TP3 / TP4
TP5 / TP6 / TP7 / TP8
Duelist Packs
Jaden | Chazz
Jaden #2 | Zane
Aster | Jaden #3
Jesse | Yusei
Yugi | Yusei #2
Kaiba | Yusei #3
Crow

Reprint Sets
Dark Beginnings
1 | 2
Dark Revelations
1 | 2 | 3 | 4
Gold Series
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
Dark Legends
DLG1
Retro Pack
1 | 2
Champion Pack
1 | 2 | 3 | 4
5 | 6 | 7 | 8
Turbo Pack
1 | 2 | 3 | 4
5 | 6 | 7

Hidden Arsenal:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4
5 | 6 | 7

Checklists
Brawlermatrix 08
Evan T 08
X-Ref List
X-Ref List w/ Passcodes

Anime
Episode Guide
Character Bios
GX Character Bios

Video Games
Millennium Duels (2014)
Nighmare Troubadour (2005)
Destiny Board Traveler (2004)
Power of Chaos (2004)
Worldwide Edition (2003)
Dungeon Dice Monsters (2003)
Falsebound Kingdom (2003)
Eternal Duelist Soul (2002)
Forbidden Memories (2002)
Dark Duel Stories (2002)

Other
About Yu-Gi-Oh
Yu-Gi-Oh! Timeline
Pojo's YuGiOh Books
Apprentice Stuff
Life Point Calculators
DDM Starter Spoiler
DDM Dragonflame Spoiler
The DungeonMaster
Millennium Board Game

Magic
Yu-Gi-Oh!
DBZ
Pokemon
Yu Yu Hakusho
NeoPets
HeroClix
Harry Potter
Anime
Vs. System
Megaman

This Space
For Rent

DeathJester's Dojo
Welcome Back: Secrets of the Pros REVEALED

by Bryan Camareno a.k.a. DeathJester
July 14, 2006

Hello everyone and welcome back to DeathJester’s Dojo! I think it’s been about 2-3 months since I last wrote an article here on Pojo.com. I’m a bit of a recluse, as you can tell from my track record of articles. However, I really…really…really promise I’ll stick around to write articles week by week. I’ve got great things in the works and you can come right here to Pojo.com to read about them.

 

A Little History Lesson…

 

In the past 2-3 months I’ve gone through quite a bit of changes; I’ve lost friends, made new friends, and totally redefined the way I look at the game and my progress in it. I’ve read countless articles, conducted rigorous research, and relentless testing. I’ve learned quite a few simple lessons from the struggle (more on that in another article).

 

In other news, I’ve made some changes to my YGO team. Yes, you remember Team Fallen right? We blew up a couple of months ago in our debut at SJC Orlando 2006. After that, our popularity well…died. We’ve kept to ourselves for the most part. Staying on the lowdown was the best course of action regarding our dismal performances at recent Regional tournaments and internal conflicts resulting in slicing off an entire division (Tampa). I won’t make excuses, we’ve done terrible, and we’ve improved each time we went home with heads hanging low and hopes crushed under the soles of our feet. The most important lesson from all of this is that progress doesn’t come from NOT failing.

 

The big reveal…

 

Life in the last few months has revealed a number of things for me in my YGO career. Where do I start? Let’s see….

 

How about I start with the professionals in our YGO community and the secret to their success? It’s actually quite simple. You’d be surprised to hear this and frankly, you might be a bit disappointed: The most successful players in this game aren’t always the most talented.

 

How many times have you thought to yourself when you look at the Top 8 SJC decks: “Damn, these decks are so boring…why do these guys always win with the same bullsh*t that everyone else runs?” Good question. How DO they do it?

 

It’s a combination of factors that you may not notice right away, but you should take a closer look at our YGO celebrities and you may appreciate them more for their successes:

 

1.      Goal-Setting and Self-Evaluation: The #1 quality of all successful individuals in this game. These guys have strong, well-defined goals. They know exactly what they want, why, and how they are going to get it. Their brains do the rest for them. When they set goals, they make sure they conduct regular self-evaluation on their progress towards their goals. This is to ensure they don’t waste time. They try their hardest to relate everything they do to their goals. Conducting activities that are related to your goals and will bring you closer to them are productive activities. It takes a large amount of willpower to travel from major event to major event and consistently do well. It’s a drive or groove that they have that does not waver under any circumstances. If they come across an obstacle, they keep their sights set firmly on their goal and plow through. Simple and efficient. Maximum productivity. Like a machine. 

2.      Tight Play: Again, the most successful players in this game aren’t the most talented. Implant that in your head. They win because they play tight. They always make the optimal play based on the information they gather during the game and draw from experience. If they make a mistake, they dig their way out their graves to steal the win back. They treat mistakes much like bumps in the road. Yea you hit the bump, but your car keeps on moving right? You don’t have to talented to do that.

3.      They win the games they are supposed to win: I learned this from a prominent MTG player. The pros in MTG “win the games they are supposed to win”. What the hell does that mean? It means that the pros aren’t always tremendously better than your local store champ, but they are better at seizing opportunity when it appears. If you are the type of player that likes to give the game away to your opponent, they will take it from you. This is how the pros win. They capitalize on your tiniest mistakes.    

4.      Testing: Like any professional TCG gamer, YGO professionals test, test, and test some more. Each group of pros has their own method of testing the popular match-ups as well as the unpopular ones. Whatever method they choose, it is always rigorous and time-consuming. Let’s face it; test-playing takes an extensive amount of time. If you don’t test, you don’t win. Sometimes our schedules won’t permit such a commitment to one particular activity. That’s ok. As long as your time test-playing is productive then you have nothing to worry about. I’ll elaborate on this in my next article.

5.      Time Management: Time management is a prerequisite for true success at anything. You can’t be successful at anything if you don’t make the proper amount of time for it. Our pros aren’t chumps without jobs and no kind of education (unless they’re younger than 16. The older players are winning more nowadays anyway). They know how to use their time-wisely (this relates to everything; not just test-play). If you want to be a champion, you’ve got to be a master of your own time.  

6.      Pros hang out with Pros: It’s a tried and true success axiom that: if you want to get better at anything you should hang out with people that are slightly or much better than you at it. Pros are not as stuck up and elitist are some of them market themselves to be. Most of the successful players are actually more than happy to help an aspiring duelist if he/she would appreciate their help. I’ll tell you something, the main reason why pros don’t bother taking challenges from “lesser” a player is because it’s a waste of their time. They don’t learn anything and they don’t progress any further from beating a “lesser” player. Also, a “lesser” player would obsessively brag about how he beat “such and such” one time in his entire life anyway. I understand if you’re a fan-boy or fan-girl of any pro. Any other case means you’re a loser and you should shut your mouth. Success in this game is determined by credentials and experience. Beating a pro in a casual game does not give you credentials. If you beat them to steal the SJC Champion title from them, THEN you can talk.

 

How do you feel about that?

 

Those are the “secrets” to the pros in YGO. It’s really that simple. In my next article I will teach you techniques that will guarantee that your success rate will improve dramatically in less than a month. I will transform you from local store newbie to Regional Tournament heavy hitter. Or even Regional heavy hitter to contention for the SJC Championship title. Make sure you read my next article carefully. You won’t be disappointed.

 

Until next time everyone, remember to play hard, think through your moves, and most importantly…have fun!

 


 


Copyright© 1998-2006 pojo.com
This site is not sponsored, endorsed, or otherwise affiliated with any of the companies or products featured on this site. This is not an Official Site.