YCS Turin - Geargia Karuri wins the 125th YCS

Kinda overlooked this one (probably because I couldn't attend), but past weekend was the 125th YCS, YCS Turin (Italy).

Let's do a quick sum-up of the event:

• 1325 attendees, which all received the Artorigus playmat.
• 521 attendees played (some form of) Dragon Rulers, making it (obviously) the most popular deck of the moment.
• Second most popular deck was Evilswarm, once more confirming that Europeans in general like Dark decks.
• The standings at the end of Swiss. It's on this page.
• Several Americans attended the 125th YCS, including the winner (Sam Pedigo) and other famous (ARG) people like Patrick Hoban. Last mentioned one won the YCS trial, gaining a free trip to the next European YCS.
• All coverage articles can be read on The Coverage site of YCS Turin.

The top cut

The top 32 consisted of:

• 21x Dragon Ruler (all variants)
• 5x Evilswarm
• 2x Geargia
• 1x Fire Fist
• 1x Prophecy
• 1x Bujin

After that, it got cut further down as follows: Top 16 play-off chart.

An interesting side-note: I heard Michel Gruner got a game-loss due to slow play, which caused him losing the match versus Pedigo (who then ends up being the winner).

And the final was ... Samuel Pedigo (Geargia Karakuri) Vs Konrad Grunewald (Dragon Rulers). With Samuel becoming the winner!

Some deck profiles

I'll try to find some more deck profiles (let's see if Lithium uploads any). I'll post (and update) them here:

• Samuel Pedigo - Geargia Karakuri (Winner)
• Joshua Schmidt - Dragon Rulers (4th place) and Michel Gruner (top 8)
• Kevin Langenberg - Fire Fist (top 8)
• Aris Samaras - Evilswarm (Top 8)
• Matej Jakob - Geargia Karakuri (Top 16)
• Dustin Sembach - Bujin (Top 32)
• More will follow when I find them.

A side-note, the YCS Sydney Playmat

European YCS's always hold a surprise or two. This time, on Fridays, the announcement was that YCS Sydney would hand out a playmat to all attendees (to boost non-Australian players' motivation to attend). What mat could do that? A frigging Dark Magician Girl playmat! Check it out!

Is it just me or is this slightly less censored?
It looks amazing!

That's it for now. V out.

YCS Turin & First Oceanian YCS

Hey, it's been a while. You know, busy with work and had a concert with the brass band I play in (and help manage). Due to that, I'v been missing out on the sneaks.

But now that the concert is over, I got more time again for Yugiohs! There have been quite a few announcements in the past week. The most interesting ones were those about the first upcoming YCS's.

First Oceanian YCS is a fact: YCS Sydney

North America, Latin America and Europe have had their fair share of YCS's in the past few years, but people from down under have been requesting a YCS for years now. Up until now, that was always without avail.

But guess what? A few days ago, Mike Ting (Dueling Legacy) mentioned on his facebook page that Australia would get the first Oceanian YCS. And yesterday, that was confirmed by Konami on the following page: http://www.yugioh-card.com/uk/news/news_ycssydney.html.

This YCS will take place in Sydney, Australia on January 18 + 19. The event will take place in the ANZ Stadium.

YCS Sydney will become the first YCS of 2014 and will be (most probably) the first YCS that will follow the January 2014 Forbidden & limited list.

So if you ever thought about taking a trip down south, this might be the perfect opportunity. Also for many OCG players, this might be an opportunity to participate in a big TCG event, since Australia is closer by than most American events (let alone European events).

YCS Turin is 125th YCS and Konami celebrates it

The next YCS is the 125th YCS and this time, that will be YCS Turin (Italy) at the end of this month (November 30 + December 1).

For that reason, Konami announced yesterday that every attendant will receive a unique playmat for that YCS, with Noble Knight Artorigus. Also, the top-cut will not receive the Giant Hand playmat, but a unique Lady of the Lake playmat. And they're quite nice looking too.

"You have my sword!"

"It's dangerous to go into the top-32. Take this!"

More details on the event itself can be found on the following page: http://www.yugioh-card.com/uk/events/ycs_turin.html

Sadly enough, I won't be attending this one (ran out of days off :-P ), but I guess it just became worth it to attend, huh.

Until next time, V out.

The World Championship, new European YCS (Turin) and a change in dueling?

World Championship this weekend

This weekend is the World Championship of Yu-Gi-Oh! in Las Vegas. If you're not up for a gamble, you can always play cards, huh?

If you want to know who ALL the representatives are, check out the Road of the King blog. He listed all the reps per country they came from.

If you want more information on the event itself, go read this FAQ page.

Also, this week the World Champion trophy cards have been revealed. Just look at them.

Unique as always, but still illegal to play.

On event coverage, Konami will (probaly) post it on the following page: http://www.konami.com/yugioh/blog/?cat=221.

DSummon (the famous Singapore blogger) will be present (as an interpreter for the Asian reps) and update the following facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/events/620530274646211/

New European YCS - YCS Turin

While the Americans are complaining about slow communication about their YCS's, the European communication is going at an all-time high. Konami just revealed there will be another European YCS this year (that's the fifth this year, a new record!). The location will be Turin, Italy. The date will be the weekend of November 30 & December 1. More details will follow soon. Source: http://www.yugioh-card.com/uk/news/news_ycs_turin.html.

Next to that, the new YCS winner card is revealed (the empire of Digvorzhak is over), together with the new YCS mat. The card/mat is Nr. 106: Giant Hand. The card is decent, the mat looks amazing. I guess YCS Brussels/Toronto will be the first YCS's to have these cards/mats.

What grabs ya? This hand will...

Change in the way we play?

And last but not least in this news week is a small article published in this week's Jump (I think it was Jump, please correct me if I'm wrong).

Yeah, I didn't understand it either, like you (probably). But the people of the Yu-Gi-Oh Edition Singapore were so kind to translate it for us.

In short, there will be changes in how we play the game (no card rule changes, but gameplay changes). And due to those changes, the September F&L list (the banlist) will be influenced as well. The changes will be published in the October issue of V-Jump (usually in stores around the third full weekend of September (20-21st).

What the change is going to be? Nobody knows for certain, but people are guessing (read: wishing) it will be about the 15-card limit of the extra deck. But honestly, who knows for sure with Lolkonami? Also, we don't know if this change will be OCG-only (like fore example, OCG YCS's?), or if the TCG will follow these new rules in the upcoming year.

More details will definitely follow.

Until next time, V out.