As a legendary grand father once said to his grandson, “You Must Believe in the heart of the cards” and to this day that quote still stands. The Yu-Gi-Oh Trading Card game is still as big as ever with millions of players worldwide carrying on the tradition originally formed from the anime series, that is still going today in the form of Yu-Gi-Oh Zexal.
During the MCM Memorabilia Expo in Birmingham, Dom from VGU gladly decided to put his trust into the heart of the cards once again after a long time away from the card game. Along with him were fellow VGU members and trading card players Sarah and Kieron ready to give him a helping hand and some friendly direction to get back into the hot seat of duelling.
Firstly he participated in a little beginners match with one of the Konami help desk representatives. He was to duel with this helper and see how well he could do with the starter deck provided. It was a bit of an ordeal as Dom could not fully comprehend all of the new effects and monsters that had came out. His face told a thousand words as he stared down at the first five cards in his hands and began to look both intrigued and puzzled about what to do first.
With a little help from Kieron and Sarah, the trilby wearing duellist was able to successfully defeat his first opponent in years and was rewarded some goodies for his troubles. The next big task ahead of him was to understand the basics of ‘sealed’ play.
Sealed play in Yu-Gi-Oh is when you are given five packs of cards and given the chance to create a twenty card deck to play with their opponents. This format is mostly used to throw in-experienced players into the same league as the pros as they will all be using similar cards from the same set/sets.
Dom’s task was simple, he was given a collection of cards and was told to turn those cards into a twenty card deck. There were twenty three cards overall, so he would have to find out what cards would not work for this kind of play. After roughly twenty minutes of contemplation and planning, Dom had created a twenty card deck balanced with monsters, spells and trap cards. The representative said that he had a good talent when it came to building decks and, with some practice, could be a real contender for tournament play.
Overall the training session at MCM was a success with the newly reformed duellist getting a hold of some free cards, as well as buying an array of cards to get himself off of the ground. The day after at a local game store, Dom had his first session of seeing how a tournament style environment both looks and plays out.
Sadly, although he was prepared with a deck made the night before, the young man chose to not directly participate in the event and instead stood at the side lines watching as the matches unfolded before him. He was able to talk with a large array of differently skilled players including both Keiron and Trish from VGU.
The weekend overall was a good one and Dom now has his sights set on becoming just as good as his fellow comrades as well as maybe heading to the nationals at some point later the year. Do you think he can go all the way or do you recon the duellist should hang up his hat for good? Be sure to leave your thoughts on this adventure below and be sure to look forward to future instalments into the VGU member’s Yu-Gi-Oh adventures.
