The Legend of the Shadows Deck
Matthew "The Shadow" Sita
Wizards of the Coast
Springfield, VA
January 18th, 2002
32 participants

     Dude, the Shadow has returned to pojo.com after about a solid month of no tournaments at WOTC due to the Christmas season.  I'm not sure about anyone else, but my Christmas was excellent.  I was able to get the Morphing Jar from TP2, Jinzo, and Ceasefire in the same day.  Until Labyrinth of Nightmares come out, the Shadow is going with his very shibby and very new Shadow deck:

Shadow Deck 5.0

Monsters (23):
1 Witch of the Black Forest (Can sum1 PLEASE tell me Y this is Majorly Restricted?!)
1 Jinzo (it's 2 good 2 be a monster)
1 Barrel Dragon (It's called Field Control, learn it well)
1 Goblin Attack Force (1 is enough)
2 White Magical Hat (Hand Destruption)
3 Man-Eater Bug (CHOMP!!)
2 Wall of Illusion (Dude, it's the Wall of Death)
2 Masked Sorcerer (Drawing+Drawing=more Drawing)
1 Cyber Jar (Dark Hole+2.5 Pot of Greeds=this)
1 Morphing Jar (From the TP2...oh it's true...IT'S DAMN TRUE!)
2 Hayabusa Knight (How can you say no to a bird with a sword?)
3 Magician of Faith (Oh what Magic card should I get?)
2 La Jinn the Mystical Genie of the Lamp (Pure beatdown.)
1 Goddess of Whim (Possibly a 1900 monster (HAH! Beat that Mechanicalchaser!))

Magic (15):
1 Premature Burial (Dude, the 2nd Monster Reborn)
1 Soul Release (Exodia's worst nightmare)
1 Monster Reborn (The original resurrection card)
1 Swords of Revealing Light (Why are THESE Majorly Restricted?!)
1 Dark Hole (FIRE IN THE HOLE!!)
1 Pot of Greed (See Masked Sorcerer)
1 Change of Heart (Dude, controling is cool.)
1 Delinquent Duo (Who cares if I take 1000 Life Points? You lose 2 cards.)
1 Snatch Steal (The Change of Heart that gives...gives away Life Points...stupid Snatch Steal.)
1 Axe of Despair (I NEED ANOTHER AXE!)
1 The Forceful Sentry (The cheaper Confiscation)
1 Raigeki (BOOM! SHAKA-LAKA!!)
1 Exchange (YES! IT'S FINALLY LEGAL!)
2 Heavy Storm (Beware of the Tempest.)

Traps (8):
2 Waboku
1 Mirror Force
1 Call of the Haunted (this+Jinzo=free Monster Reborn)
2 Magic Drain (Poor Man's Magic Jammer)
1 Ceasefire (or as SCOOT would like to call it...KEASEFUR)
1 Trap Hole (I'm an idiot.  That's all I can say.)

Side Deck (15 of course):
1 Serpent Night Dragon (My favorite dragon)
1 Cosmo Queen (Good stats for a Level 8 monster)
1 Dark Magician (One of my favorite cards)
1 Chain Destruction (They flip over a Man-Eater or a Magician of Faith, they lose the other MEB or MoF.)
1 Confiscation (It's now not bad, but not good enough)
1 Limiter Removal (this+Jinzo & Barrel Dragon=up to 10,000 direct damage.)
1 Mirror Wall (no comment)
1 Gravity Bind (To all of those high level monster decks)
1 Nobleman of Extermination (why didn't I put in Crossout instead of THIS)
3 Shield & Sword (I used to have a Beast of Talwar until I traded it...too bad.)
1 Solomon's Lawbook (this+Mirror Wall=free of costs)
2 7 Completed (Help my Jinzo & Barrel Dragon)

23+15+8=46 card deck.  Monster:Magic/Trap ratio; 1:1.  Since I thought that most of the people here in WOTC would be using Exodia (rich punks), I made an anti-Exodia/Beatdown deck.  It basically destrupts the hand with the Morphing Jar and the White Magical Hat, and pure beatdown with Barrel Dragon & Jinzo.  Well, the fee was upped to $6.00 instead of $5.00, but for a good reason.  Instead of the Top 4 getting boosters, it's now the Top 8 that get boosters.  Now I think it's time to tell my story.

Round 1
Shadow vs. Marc Anthony (Fairy Meteor Crush Beatdown deck)
This person has a lot of potential.  He just needs a little more confidence and a couple more stronger cards in his deck and he'll be good to go.

Rounds 1 & 2: As much potential he has, he didn't really do that well against me.  Whenever he put a FMC (Fairy Meteor Crush) on a Harpie's Brother, he kept on hitting one of my Wall of Illusion and losing the Meteor.  I managed to Jinzoize him and won the match.
2-0

     During the break, Steven, the annoying redhead who acts like a black person, was getting on my nerves about seeing me losing the next round (he kinda reminds me about Sam's little brother, Nathan, for being an annoying loser).  I also saw a little of the match between Eric, a friend from my old school, and Craig, the Max wannabe and the only person that I can't seem to beat in this game.  I was relieved when I saw Eric beating Craig, but then my "psychic feelings" went off and I saw myself facing Eric the next round, and like my instincts would tell me, my next match IS against Eric.  Well, earlier today, Eric managed to beat me, and to top it off, he even beat me on my birthday (Saturday, September 14th).  Now I have a score to settle with Eric.

Round 2
Shadow vs. Eric (Sole Cannon Soldier beatdown)
Eric, who is a 3 time PM Champion, had to face me, the AM Champion.  He has a very weird deck.  He is a very good duelist (I should know because he beat Craig who really annoys me and is pretty good).  This was basically a clash between two titans.  Even if he was my friend, I couldn't let him win.

Round 1: He didn't get ANYTHING out because I kept on using my monster removal cards on him and kept on hitting his Life Points directly with a Hayabusa Knight.  It took only about 5 turns to beat him.

Round 2: Now THIS was a match.  We kept on exchanging blows until he was at 4750 to my 1800.  He had a Cannon Soldier out and I only had a Wall of Illusion on the field.  I needed either a Change of Heart or a Snatch Steal because I had Jinzo in my hand, but because I STILL believe in Heart of the Cards, I drew Snatch Steal, stole Cannon Soldier, and offered it for the almighty Jinzo, and hit him directly.  He was now at 2350.  He drew and I saw him grinning a little grin and played the card he had drawn in defense mode.  This got me a little concerned.  I need to believe in the Heart of the Cards again, this time needing only one card, Raigeki.  I closed my eyes, drew my card...BOOM!  SHAKA-LAKA!  It was Raigeki!  I used it, and attacked him again directly with Jinzo.  He couldn't believe it and neither could I.  I actually beat Eric!  Just for any people that were wondering what the defense card was, it was a Cyber Jar.  I was shocked and so was Eric for me defeating him and for me drawing Raigeki.  I was satisfied now that I got my revenge on Eric.
4-0

     During the break, Goat heard that I beat Eric and was also very happy that I beat him.  I then saw that Goat beat Alex, my tag team partner, who used the offensive Exodia deck, but because Goat knows that Jeffery helped Alex make that deck, Goat beat Alex.  Steven then said that it was luck that I beat Eric, but doesn't know that it takes more than brute luck to win against a duelist with such caliber as Eric, it also takes technique and skill to win.  Anyways, I was now guaranteed at least 8th place since there were now 8 people left:

Matthew Sita (me)
Shane Anthony (Marc's younger brother)
Little Washu (GOAT!)
Patrick (Eric's cousin)
Daniel (N00B)
Marco (another N00B)
Jason (an Exodia N00B)
Bruce (my next opponent...coughN00Bcough)

Quarterfinals
Shadow vs. Bruce (mini-Beatdown)
Rounds 1 & 2: I wondered who this kid faced.  He barly did ANY damage to me.  The only damage I took was from my own cards (Dilenquent Duo, Premature Burial, etc.).  Basically, I won with little to none effort.
6-0

     Well, now I'm at the Semifinals, The Final Four, whatever you want to call it.  All I kno is that I'm undefeated and I'm hopfully going to stay that way.  These are the final four duelists:

Shadow (me)
Little Washu (GOAT!)
Shane Anthony (Marc's younger but "better" brother)
Patrick (Eric's cousin)

The matches went as follows:
Shadow vs. Shane (Yay!  I face both Anthony brothers in one tournament!)
Little Washu vs. Patrick (Of what I saw, a very close match.)

Why is it that I have to always face a opponent's relitive or anything similer to that?!  Oh well.  Let's duel!

Semifinals
Shadow vs. Shane (Beatdown deck)
Rounds 1 & 2: I don't really recall much of this match, but the only card I remembered him using was a Harpie's Brother (what is it with these 2 brothers & Harpie's Brother?).  To top it off, the next card he would've drawn was Dark Hole and I wouldn't have liked that because I had my Barrel Dragon, Jinzo, White Magical Hat, Hayabusa Knight with an Axe of Despair on him, and a Masked Sorcerer out.  The only bad thing about this match was my stupid Goddess of Whim card (kept on calling it wrong and then I offered it for Jinzo after about 7 turns of failed flips...STUPID GODDESS OF WHIM!).
8-0

     WHOO-HOO!  I'm in the finals!  Now I had to face...GOAT?!  We haven't dueled each other in about 2 months.  I kno that if I win, I'll finally become both the AM & PM champion, since Goat beat Alex who was the champ that day and I didn't participate, and I beat Eric who was the PM champ last week which I was in Pennsylvania that day.  Well, I didn't want to lose it cuse then I would be the best duelist in WOTC if I win, but if I lose, then I'm basically the second best (what am I talking about?).  I think I just confused myself, so I'm just going to talk about the duel.

FINALS
Shadow vs. Little Washu (What are the Chances? deck)
Round 1: I thought I was unstoppable in the tournament until I faced Goat.  He had a lot more experience than I did in this game because before this game came out in English, he knew all of the rules and all of the effects of the Japanese cards, giving him the upper edge in this game.  He managed to beat me cuse of his hand distruption cards and of his Jinzo.

Round 2: Same thing, but only this time, I won.

Round 3: To quote Goat: Close match, but he won.
9-2

     2nd Place...oh well, better than losing in the first round.  Goat got 10 booster packs and I got 7.  Since I kind of pityed Alex for losing to Goat (I shouldn't be talking...I lost to Goat also), I gave him one of my 7 booster packs and he got a Backup Soldier.  Goat got The Legendary Fisherman, some other holo and bad rares I 4got and my only holos were Harpie Lady Sisters and Gearfried the Iron Knight, right.  Waiter, check, Props & Slops please:

Props:
-me for getting 2nd.
-the duel between me and Eric (hardest match i ever had with him)
-Eric for taking his loss well.
-Popeye's chicken (Luv that chicken from Popeye's!)
-Pojo.com for posting working like crazy on this website.

Slops:
-bad boosters.
-Steven for being a complete loser (can't admit that I'm better than him in this game)
-Shane for thinking that he's better than his brother in Yu-Gi-Oh! (how can u be better if Marc took out more life points on his duel with me than u did Shane?)

     Wow.  My 5th Part is already done.  Well, here's to more parts to the Shadow's epic and hopfully, more different, challenging duelists like the people I've played these so many months.  If you want to contact me, e-mail me at SpedyMatt@aol.com or IM me at SpedyMatt.  If you want to see the Shadow do some live duels, on February 21st & 22nd, I'll be in Maryland in the Yu-Gi-Oh! Mall Tour.  I'm the redhead with a backpack full of intercontinental flags.  Until either Part 6 or the Mall Tour, have a nice day...exept for Steven.