Duelist Pack Kaiba

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^{Source: Konami}

In 2009, we brought back some of Yugi’s best cards in the easy-to-collect Duelist Pack format. Now we’re doing the same for Yugi’s greatest rival, with Duelist Pack – Kaiba –!

This is your chance to collect the most famous – and infamous – cards of the man himself, with some all-new twists you’ve never seen before. We’ve expanded this Duelist Pack set to 40 cards, because Kaiba has so many great cards, and we couldn’t bear to leave any of them out!

“Functional Fixedness”

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Allen Pennington, a well-known Gadget duelist from the US, has published an interesting article over at The Game Academy. In this article he talks about the term 'functional fixedness', which can be the difference between an average player and a good player.

Attention all Irish players.

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In light of recent events, I've just revieved this email from the staff at Feckin'YuGiOh, Ireland's main Yu-Gi-Oh! forum. All members have been sent this mail, and are advised to read it as soon as possible.

Deck Construction: Monster Ratios

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It’s safe to say that monsters win games in the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG. Having many powerful monsters in your Deck is a good thing, but how many is too many? Sometimes, you might have too many monsters in your Deck, or lots of monsters that are hard to Summon, and getting the right balance of Monster Cards in your Deck is one of the first things that many players learn to do.

The important thing you need to know about Monster Cards is that you can only Normal Summon or Set 1 monster per turn. That means, if you’ve got a hand with a lot of monsters in it, you won’t be able to play many cards this turn. When building your Deck, you need to keep this in mind, and try to balance out the number of monsters you want in your hand to the number of Spells and Traps you want. Most Duelists play about 20 monsters or so in their Decks, which means you should have a monster to Summon right away on your first turn, and almost always have one ready when you need another. This also means that your Deck has about 20 Spell or Trap Cards, and you can play as many of them as you want per turn to protect your monsters.

Deck Update: Six Samurai

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A Six Samurai Deck is based around the various “Six Samurai” monsters, and how they work together as a team to help you defeat your opponent. They’ve been around ever since the Strike of Neos booster set, and have gotten more and more Six Samurai cards as new sets were released. “Gateway of the Six” is a new and powerful Spell Card from Stardust Overdrive that has many Duelists going back to their Samurai Decks to see how well they can do with this new hardware.

National Championship Update

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More info about Nationals Championships in Europe and other TCG areas was posted up on the UK site recently, and needless to say, I'm not too happy with Ireland's situation:

Some interesting analysis.

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I was looking around for articles this morning when I came across this Regionals analysis on TCGPlayer.com, and I was impressed with what I saw. You can read all about it here, and I hope to see more events do something like this in future.

Local Tournament: Limerick

Ally of Justice Catastor, Part 2

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Here are some of the best ways to use “Ally of Justice Catastor,” one of the new Synchro monsters from Hidden Arsenal. You can find out about the many different ways to Summon it in Part 1.

KDE goes live with COSSY Rankings

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^{Source: Don Williams Group PR}

KONAMI DIGITAL ENTERTAINMENT, INC. GOES LIVE WITH GLOBAL RANKING SYSTEM FOR THE Yu-Gi-Oh! TRADING CARD GAME

New COSSY System Enables Duelists All Over the World To See Where They Rate Against Peers



El Segundo, CA (January 19, 2010) –Every Duelist wants to know how they measure up against the best in the world – now they’ll know as quickly as their Internet connection will allow. Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc. (KDE) today announced that their new Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s TRADING CARD GAME (TCG) global online Duelist rankings system COSSY (Konami Card Game Official Tournament Support System) is now live.

Ally of Justice Catastor, Part 1

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“Ally of Justice Catastor” was recently released in Hidden Arsenal, and it quickly became one of the most powerful and useful Synchro Monsters in the game. At Level 5, it’s very easy to Summon and can be used in any Deck. It also has a very powerful effect that lets it destroy any non-DARK monster that it battles.

Local Tournament : Limerick

SJC Los Angeles

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^{Sources: Don Williams Group PR, Konami Digital Entertainment Ltd.}

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. (January 11, 2010) - At this year's first Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's TRADING CARD GAME (TCG) SHONEN JUMP Championship, held in Los Angeles over the weekend, more than 1600 players showed off their impressive Dueling skills for a chance to be crowned the SHONEN JUMP Championship winner. Stephen Silverman from Philadelphia, PA out-battled the field of 1632 to claim the coveted title at the first of more than a dozen SHONEN JUMP Championships scheduled for 2010.

Deck Update: Lightsworn

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^{Original versions: Part 1 Part 2}

Lightsworn Decks have been doing very well in tournaments for the past year or so, winning many National Championships around the world last year, and making it to the Top 16 of numerous SHONEN JUMP Championships as well. And for the first time ever, a Lightsworn Deck won the SHONEN JUMP Championship in Los Angeles this past weekend. The main reason for Lightsworns’ success is that the Deck has a very wide range of powerful cards that allow it to win games very quickly, and Duelists have tried many different things with these cards to help give them an edge in tournaments.

Upper Deck/Konami Legal Updates

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^{Sources: Milord & Associates PC Scribd.com The New York Post}

KDE Tournament Penalty Guidelines

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Julia Hedberg (Organised Play manager for KDE) has recently posted up the various penalty guidelines for officially sanctioned tournaments.

You can find the document here.

"The Gaijin Duelist" has ended.

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"The Gaijin Duelist" (or Rauzes to some) has unforntuately called an end to his blogging 'career' for personal reasons.

You can read the full story here.

Amsterdam Winter Cup 2010

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^{Source: Sven Schuurhuis}

Twilight Edition available now.

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^{Source: Don Williams Group PR}

Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc. Embarks on a Year of Spectacular Releases with Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s TRADING CARD GAME Twilight Edition

Deck statistics for December.

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eTCG.de, Germany's largest TCG website, has been tracking the state of the game for the past few months in this thread, highlighting what's been topping and winning the most often.

Here are the figures for December:


_{Sonstige means 'other', the rest are self explanatory.}

How do Blackwing Decks work? (Part 2)

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In Part 1 of this article, we looked at the many different “Blackwing” cards that work as the backbone of a Blackwing Deck. Today we’re going to look at some other support cards that you can use to finish up your Deck.

How do Blackwing Decks work? (Part 1)

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If you’ve ever seen Crow Duel on Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s, you know that a Blackwing Deck can Special Summon lots of powerful monsters really fast. Powerful Blackwing cards like “Blackwing Armor Master” and “Delta Crow – Anti Reverse” can swing Duels in your favor, but there are lots of other things the Deck can do too. If you’re thinking of trying out a Blackwing Deck for yourself, here are some tips to get you started.