Warning: I have not done reporting like this in a while, so I hope I’m not too rusty. Just thought I’d warn you before you proceeded. Enjoy the report!

Monsters(30):

Star Boy x3

Aqua Maddor x3

Great White x3

Red Archery Girl x3

7 Colored Fish x3

Water Omotics x3

Catapult Turtle

Suijin x2

Labyrinth Wall x2

Man-Eater Bug x2

Big Eye x2

Cyber Jar

Red-Eyes B. Dragon

Blue-Eyes White Dragon

Magic(13):

Change Of Heart

Dark Hole

Fissure x2

Malevolent Nuzzler x2

Monster Reborn

Pot Of Greed

Raigeki

Shield & Sword x2

Snatch Steel

Umiruka

Traps(4):

Trap Hole x2

Waboku x2

My sister and I spent most of the evening tuning and testing our decks. We have been “training” over the past week or so, preparing for tomorrow’s event and we were excited. This would be the first time Grace would meet the Zeo crew and I’d get to see all of my friends again. We quit at about 11pm, but I didn’t fall asleep until 1am.

We woke up around 5:30 and had Chewy Chips Ahoy cookies for breakfast. After, we prepared for the long trip and left the house around 6:30. We stopped by DNL Sportscards around seven to pick up the third member of our group, Jimmy Sullivan. Jimmy was the winner of last week’s tournament at the store. Part of the prize for first place was the opportunity to come with Grace and I to the Yugioh tour location at Palisades. Needless to say, he was very excited about winning and he definitely earned it. Anyways, after talking to his mother for a moment, we were on our way.

We expected to arrive at the mall by 9 o’clock. After a bathroom break, we were half an hour earlier than expected. When we walked in, we saw the Yugioh staff getting ready by the Magician‘s Workshop area. We walked over to registration and noticed a small crowd of duelists and parents. I asked one of the individuals in the suits a question about Cyber Jar. The argument was made by a friend of mine about the effect text of the jar. When it was activated during the battle step, the step was over after all effects were resolved. The suit’s answer to that was no, after all effects were resolved, the battle step continued.

We started to pick up a couple of duels when the Zeo crew arrived. Grace and I said hello to Purity And Poinko. Shortly after, I introduced Grace to the rest of the crew: Ech, Gloom and Megs. (It was my first time meeting Megs also) After a short chat, they reported to their stations and around 9am, we started forming the line for registration. Unfortunately, I could not catalog Jimmy’s duel against Jo Mckeegan nor my duel with Grace because of the ever changing situation.

We waited on that line for about an hour and fifteen minutes until the line finally started moving. Every duelist got a badge, a goodie bag and a choice of either to attend the King of Games tournament or the Exodia Training Zone or both. I should’ve asked for both, but the tournament was more appealing to me. After we filled out our Yugioh Sweepstakes Cards and our entry forms for the Millennium Puzzle Challenge, we headed back to the dueling area. The award for winner the sweepstakes is a $250 shopping spree. (One winner a week) On the way there, the media had already setup their cameras and started reporting. Also, the lines for registration grew larger than I expected. The lines extended all the way back to the Millennium Puzzle Challenge area. Now, that was a huge line!

When we got to the Dueling area, we met up with a few kids from the same card store I mentioned earlier. Their names are Jack Sharkey, Joe Oden and Steve. I played a game against Steve and won fairly quickly. After that, we headed up to the fourth floor where the King Of Games and Exodia areas were. The King of Games challenge was pretty simple to understand. If you won three consecutive games, you got the sticker for your badge. If you are defeated, you must leave the area. It was around 11 when we were paired up for our matches and my sense of luck served me well. I got to challenge a duelist who not only was one of the toughest duelists I’d meet that day, but was also the first duelist to sign the Book of Dueling Kings. His name was Richard Errington and the performance of his deck was swift. His deck included some rare and powerful cards like Jinzo, Summoned Skull, Axe of Despair and The Call of the Haunted. As the day progressed, I would be seeing these cards over and over again. The duel didn’t last long and after the smoke cleared, he warned me about how tough the suits were. Next, I walked over to the Exodia Training Zone and waved to Purity before going back downstairs to the Millennium Puzzle Zone.

At 11:15am EST, Grace engaged the suits! She was randomly selected to duel in the challenge. The challenge was to defeat a Duelist Leader or as I called them, the suits. If you succeed, you got to write your name in the Book of Duelist Kings. Writing your name in the book is like being selected to play in the All Star game. Basically, you would be invited to a much larger tournament. She started beautifully, playing two Ground Collapses. Ground Collapse is a continuous magic card that fills two of an opponent’s monster slots. Basically, your opponent would not able to play monsters in those areas as long as the card is in play. However, the suit played a Heavy Storm, which destroys all magic and trap cards on the field. In the end, Grace fought with honor, but she could not defeat the overwhelming force of the suit.

At that point, we decided to split up and check out the rest of the dueling areas. I walked around until I found an opponent, a Pojo regular by the name of Matt Lifschultz. The ending to this duel was an interesting one. Matt tributed to play Jinzo in Attack Mode and played an Equip Magic card doubling its attack points if its owner’s life points is lower than its opponents. So, I’m staring down this monster of 4400 attack points and what do I draw next? Snatch Steel! Snatch Steel is also an Equip card that takes control over an opponent’s creature. However, the opponent would gain a thousand life points during each of his/her standby phases. We didn’t need to worry about that because I dealt enough damage to end the duel. After the duel, Matt wanted to look through my deck and gave me a couple of suggestions that I will use later.

During the day, I kept track of the Millennium Puzzle Zone while trying out the Duelist Arcade. It was pretty cool. Eventually, I made my way over to the Magician’s Workshop while trivia was taking place. Some of the questions I didn’t know the answers to because I’m not familiar with all the cards yet. I didn’t stay too long because the amount of kids and parents tripled by the time I decided to leave. After lunch, which was about 1:30, I went back to dueling. I accepted a challenge from a Brian Gilbergn, another tough duelist. I lost the match, but noticed the always present Call of the Haunted appear again. I have to get some of them. Next, I fought a duelist named John Colen. I won the duel with a well played Blue-Eyes White Dragon.

Now, you’re probably wondering if I had encountered any duelists who did not play by the tributing rules. Then answer to that question is yes. I fought a couple of kids who did not want to play with tributes and who wanted to start at two thousand life points, like the television show. Before I explaining the events that took place in these duels, I will offer one piece of advice: Do not challenge anyone with the idea of no tributing. My deck, as well as others I’ve seen, are too dangerous in that field. I dueled against a kid who was able to knock me down to fifty life points. He has 1700 life points and the following in play: BEWD in Attack Mode, a Parasite Paracide in Defense Mode and all of his Magic & Trap slots filled. Only one of them was active, a Skull Invitation. Skull Invitation is a Continuous Trap that dealt 300 damage to a duelist for every card that goes to the graveyard from play. I had a set Red Archery Girl and my hand consisted of a another Red Archery Girl, a Shield and Sword and Snatch Steal.

Needless to say, I was in a bit of a bind and needed a miracle. (Clears throat) I needed to tap into the Heart of the Cards and let my deck show me the way. I drew and pulled… Catapult Turtle! It took me a moment to figure out the problem. The best I could do is a tie and here’s how I did it: I used Snatch Steel to take the BEWD and attacked the Parasite. Once that hit the kids’ graveyard, his life points dropped to 1400. Then, I tributed his dragon to the turtle and dealt half of the dragon’s attack points to my opponent. I bought him down to zero, but because Snatch Steel hit my graveyard, I was also brought down to zero. So, we played again and I set a Suijin in defense mode. The kid played his BEWD and attacked me. Since Suijin’s effect text allows me to reduce the dragon’s attack points to zero, my opponent suffered enough damage to lose the duel.

I fought one other duelist who only played without tributing. Before that, around 3:30, I challenged a duelist named Xen. I had saw this guy duel earlier and I have been wanting to duel with him since then. Well, now I get my chance. The duel lasted about thirty minutes. During the duel, he told me he was glad to finally face someone who knew about the tributing rule and that’s when I wondered how many there are playing that way. Anyway, the duel was rough and I saw familiar cards like COTHaunted, Summoned Skull, Cyber Jar and a very impressive Shadow Ghoul. By itself, the Shadow Ghoul’s attack strength reached 2800 without any help from magic or trap cards. Eventually, I won the duel the duel and trust me, it wasn’t an easy win either.

While our duel was in progress, a kid sitting next to me kept bragging after every match that he had defeated twenty duelists and he was unstoppable. This is the other duelist I met that did not play with tributing. After my match with Xen, I challenged the kid and the duel was underway. The duel ended before it began. I used the same trick as before and set Suijin on the field. My opponent played a BEWD and the above result happened again. We played best two out of three and that game lasted three turns. I did not draw a Suijin, but I did draw and set a BEWD on the field. My opponent attacked it with a Man-Eater Bug and he took more damage than his life points could sustain.

The last few duels I fought that day was mainly against my card shop friends, with the exception of one. The duelists’ name was Webster Ballard and our duel was long as well as very interesting. We encountered a problem with Monster Reborn and the Fairy’s Hand Mirror. When I played Monster Reborn to revive my BEWD, he played the hand mirror in response to force me to retarget the Monster Reborn. We weren’t sure if the card worked that way and asked. After looking it up, the decision was that the text of the Fairy’s hand Mirror can only target Monsters in play and not those in the graveyard. So, with that done, the duel ended shortly after. Then, Jack Sharkey challenged me with a new deck of his. I won the duel, but the battle was long! The idea of his strategy is to deck his opponents quickly. It almost happened with me as I was down to three cards left in my deck when the duel was over. I enjoyed that duel very much. My last duel for the day was against Joe Oden. He used an Earth beat down deck, but the deck wasn’t working in our duel.

Finally, six o’clock, closing time! We got a group photo of all of us, said our goodbyes and I sought after the Zeo crew, hoping to say goodbye to everyone. We got to say goodbye to Ech, Pure and Poinko, but I couldn’t find Megs and Gloom. Before the day began, Grace and I gave Pure a birthday card with presents for her. She thanked us for the cards and we wished her a happy birthday again. Grace and Pure chatted shortly, but with having to get Jimmy home and everyone rushing to finish cleaning up, we decided to head home.

Now, I don’t know why, but I suddenly developed a craving for ice cream. I don’t know why, I just did! So, we stopped and had dinner (dessert for me), dropped Jimmy off, and headed home. Man, what an awesome day that was! A LOT OF WALKING… not that I’m complaining about it or anything. To all who read this, bring walking shoes if you can. The next location is in Mass and Grace and I will be there on Sunday, not Saturday. We have already tuned our decks again and our prepared to take on all duelists. I will be easy to spot. I’ll be wearing my Pokemon hat, so I’ll be VERY easy to spot. Come by and say hello and if you feel up to it, let’s duel!

Raymond Rufa

LuMaga1@aol.com or Ciammaru@yahoo.com