From: ANTyoshima@aol.com
Basic Hand Drestruction

Mike Rosenberg (Dawn Yoshi)

Madison Square Garden

New York, NY

8/10/03

Monsters

1 Yata-Garasu
1 Sinister Serpent
3 Nimble Momonga
3 Spirit Reaper
2 Spear Dragon
1 Goblin Attack Force
1 Fiber Jar
1 Guardian Sphinx
1 Exiled Force
1 Witch of the Black Forest
1 Sangan
1 Jinzo

Magic

1 Raigeki
1 Dark Hole
1 Harpie’s Feather Duster
2 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 The Forceful Sentry
1 Delinquent Duo
1 Confiscation
1 Monster Reborn
1 Change of Heart
1 Snatch Steal
1 Nobleman of Crossout
1 Pot of Greed
1 Graceful Charity
1 Mirage of Nightmare

Traps

1 Mirror Force
1 Magic Cylinder
1 Ring of Destruction
1 Imperial Order
1 Call of the Haunted
1 Torrential Tribute
2 Drop Off

Side Deck

1 Dark Coffin
2 Trap Dustshoot
1 Forced Requisition
1 Magician of Faith
1 Cyber Jar
1 Card Destruction
1 Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer
1 Swords of Revealing Light
1 Kuriboh
1 Ceasefire
1 Premature Burial
2 Trap of Board Eraser
1 White Magical Hat

Sorry for the big delay on this everyone. I realize the championship has been over for over 10 days (note: that was a month ago =/), but I was busy with starting school again, as well as handle some auctions I was selling. My guest on this trip was my mom. Also note that this is not a normal deck submission, as it’s more or less coverage of the whole event, with a small portion dedicated to the tourney.

My trip began at 4:00 am on a Friday morning. This was the best time I could get since this is literally flying from one corner of the country to the other. Leaving on a Saturday might have caused a late arrival to the banquet. After getting ready and getting a ride to the airport, we got inside and checked in at around 6:30. Boarding didn't begin until 7:15, so we had some time to kill. After getting a bite to eat, the boarding process began and we got our seats. Five long and boring hours passed, and we finally arrived at New York. The time would have been about 1:00, but seeing as how I was on the east coast we had to adjust to 4:00, which wasn't that hard since we didn't get much sleep anyway. I'd be dead alseep by 10:00 here at this point. Moving on, we checked into the Southgate Hotel at 5:30 when we finally got there by cab. Not much was done that night, except touring of the Empire State Building. I should warn you that if you are touring New York, skip the Empire State Building unless you're there at ungodly hours in the morning, since the place is overrun with rude and obnoxious tourists. They're one big irritation.

I'll skip what I did on Saturday, since that's not important. The banquest was at 7:00, and it gave the finalists a chance to meet each other and get their paperwork and decklist charts, which needed to be filled out before the morning. Of course, being the antisocial shy-guy that I am around people I haven't met, I sat at my seat drinking Coke. Getting up wasn't a good idea anyway since there were a few camera-men filming people getting their food and eating, including one bitch who would get into people's faces with her camera. Oh well, it's only expected. During the meal, Mark Irwin introduced all the finalists and gave us a brief speech before dinner ended. I got pissed at the thought of people trash-talking him online, since he's actually a pretty nice guy in real life. All the judges were there too, including Robert and Kevin. I also met the Singapore finalist, who was at our table. His guest was the man who runs the World of JJ, which makes me regreat misplacing his business card. If anyone has that information, please e-mail me since I'd like to do some business at that store.

After the meal, Mark Irwin and Kevin took the finalists, both video game and TCG, to Madison Square Garden to let us know what would be happening on Sunday. The rundown was pretty basic, with details on prizes, where we would be waiting in between duels, and the featured table (the big table that had cameras all around it). After Kevin answered some card rulings questions, we were dismissed from the tournament area to go back to our hotels.

The tournament began around 9:00 in the morning for the TCG players. In between rounds we were allowed to wait in the duelist lounge, which was a small little area with some food, some tables, couches, and a TV so we can see the featured duelist table. This was my main chance for seeing what people had to trade, or to see what decks people ran outside of the tournament. The japanese finalists had some amazing collections too. Many cards are rare in the japanese game, such as Newt, which sells for about fifty dollars. Other cards are hard to get, like ultimate rares and Breaker. One of the finalists had a collections sporting off 12 friggin newts! He also had about 18 breakers (4 parallel), 9 Black Paladins from 303 (3 ultimate) and about 5 pages front and back of ultimate rares. This site was just scary, yet I also found it exciting to see. I was able to get a few good cards off the guy, like ultimate makyura and death vorstagalf. Anthony (southern finalist) was able to get 3 newts and a jounouchi structure version 2, starting off his japanese collection. Another original collection born. ^_^

The tournament outside was pretty detailed, but the announcers did not cover the non-featured duels much at all. My first round at the featured table was against one of the Japanese duelists...great. I already knew his deck would be good, but I learned that his deck was similar to mine (control, and just to note I didn't have internet access up there so I didn't know of the deck lists). The first duel was pretty intense, where I was barely able to win through a goblin attack force and a psycho shocker. The second duel was about half the time, but in my opponent's favor, and he took that win. I was able to get the victory in the third duel for the match with a successful yata lock. The other duels went by pretty smoothly too, where three from the U.S were able to stay alive (including myself).

The second round was a shame, since it pitted me against Rick Anderson, meaning one U.S duelist was guaranteed to be knocked out of the standings. The duels were pretty quick, and I was able to take victory during the 2nd duel. Apparently the judges were not allowed to give help during a tournament duel, and that they were only supposed to intervene when somebody played a card incorrectly. They didn't do this though, which didn't really matter. My question with Call of the haunted wouldn't have helped since it was destroyed. Rick's deck was maybe one of two-three beatdown decks at the tournament, which unfortunately cannot stand against a stall/hand destruction deck.

The third round was my last round, as it was against Hong Kong finalist Ng Yu Leung. His methods of running a hand destruction deck were better, and he knew when to use his cards. During the first duel, when he had mirage of nightmare on the field, he chose to have cards discarded from his hand in order to keep me from drawing anything. That idea caused me to lose the duel due to not having any cards in hand. The second duel left me dead too, when he used delinquent duo to kill my hand on turn 1. I attacked his facedown with spear dragon only to run into a magician of faith, finally causing me to lose the last of my hand. Yata finished me off for the tournament, but it was certainly obvious who the better duelist was. Congrats again to ng for winning. ^^

Of course, there was the duel for 3rd place too. I was able to defeat Huai Tao Sun for 3rd place too, but at least 2 U.S duelists made it into the top 4. That's certainly a nice sight aftering hearing many people rant on about how the U.S duelists wouldn't make it through round 1 or 2. Well, the tournament was fun, and it was a big success. I would love to talk about more of New York, but that would be off-topic from this forum.

Final result-

Champion: Ng Yu Leung
Runner-Up: Shigeki Kitamura
3rd Place: Mike Rosenberg
4th Place: Huai Tao Sun

Pros of the tourney-

U.S not sucking

Dueling some awesome people

Seeing collections of the japanese finalists, and getting some of those cards. ^^

Cons-

Hearing people get impatient during the tournament.

Seeing Yu-Gi-Oh dubbed episodes of keith vs. jou on the big screen...ack.

Well, 2003 wasn't bad. I wish everyone luck who's entering into 2004's Duelist King tournament. Good luck everyone. ^^