The 250th Yu-Gi-Oh! Championship Series (YCS) in London was one of the best-attended events in Europe in recent years with a good 3,600 tickets sold for the main event. A significant increase compared to the YCS Utrecht with 2200 duelists last year, which I could already report on. And there is much more to come, as the organizers assured me. The rush is great and even the spacious premises of the venue in the Exhibition Center London (ExCeL) quickly reach their limits.
Venue of the 250th YCS in London: the ExCeL exhibition center at the Victoria Docks.
No wonder the face-to-face events are so popular: all the Duelists I spoke to in London value personal contact with like-minded people. Despite all the rivalry on the game board, long-term friendships develop, the enthusiasm for the Yu-Gi-Oh! TRADING CARD GAME (TCG) as a common hobby is clearly in the foreground for many. In general, the community present is very cooperative: people chat, trade, discuss decks and strategies, and give new players advice and support. It is also pleasing that the proportion of female duelists is increasing noticeably and taking part in tournaments that are currently still dominated by male players.
If you are perhaps not familiar with the rules, I would like to go into the course of the tournament briefly: A match consists of a maximum of three duels within the maximum playing time of 45 minutes. Whoever wins two duels or is ahead after the end of the game wins the match and gets three points in the preliminary rounds, in case of a tie everyone gets one point. Twelve preliminary rounds were played in London, after which the best 64 players then chose the champion in a knockout system.
In addition to the championship, visitors could also take part in public events, collect points in duels and exchange them for prizes on site or buy and sell tickets from retailers.
The winner was the Frenchman Samir Bachar, who defeated the German Tom Kleinegräber 2-1 after 30 minutes of play in the final and was able to look forward to the trophy and rare cards such as an Anotherverse Dragon card as a prize. Incidentally, Bachar played with a deck of the archetype Spright, which was already very popular in the top 64 of the YCS Utrecht 2022. You can look at the winning deck with 25 monsters, 12 spells and 3 traps as inspiration for your own duels.
In addition to Spright in various compositions, the Kashtira archetype can be found several times as a deck in the top 16 players of the tournament and was also played by runner-up Tom Kleinegräber. In the final, Tom relied on fewer monsters, but 23 spells like Kashtiratheosis, Obliteration Informant or Pot of Prosperity, which can be used to ban cards. I’m curious to see how the meta will develop in the future and which archetypes will determine the next tournaments. Spright is definitely still a good choice.
As head judge, Moritz Astfalk from Tübingen has the last word in disputes.
Speaking of decks, most participants play with a 40-card main deck and a 15-card extra and side deck. But significantly more cards are also allowed, namely 60 in the main deck. Joshua Schmidt, last year’s winner of the YCS Utrecht, explains why it usually stays at 40 cards. The reason lies in probability. The chance of drawing a card needed in a certain game situation is simply higher when there are fewer cards in the deck. Sounds logical, it is.
According to Schmidt, in addition to skill, luck and time also play a greater role in winning a game. If you play an attack against an opponent’s face-down card, things can go wrong and you lose a powerful monster or a valuable spell, or you don’t get what you need when drawing from your own deck. The time factor is also often decisive in the game. Three quarters of an hour is quickly over and it has also happened to him that, despite being superior in a duel, he was no longer able to equalize with a 1:0 for the opponent due to the passage of time.
Selected games and of course the exciting final were broadcast on screens in the hall.
Joshua Schmidt, who comes from Giessen, has been collecting and playing since elementary school and, at the age of 27, can already look back on a long career. In addition to Utrecht, he also won the YCS in Prague and Madrid, this time in London it was only enough for a place in the top 32. He has a good tip for beginners with tournament ambitions: You can get a more than usable deck with little financial effort if you buys you the Structure Deck Beware of Traptrix three times. This costs you a total of almost 30 euros and offers you a very good basis for being able to play competitively. In case you’re wondering why you need the deck three times: It’s simple, you can have a maximum of three copies of a card in your deck and by buying three Structure Decks, that’s guaranteed.
The judges are one of the most important people in a tournament. More than 80 referees, a dozen team leads and eight head judges ensured compliance at the YCS London. I spoke to Moritz Astfalk, who, as one of the six head judges for the main event, is the point of contact for players and fellow referees and has the last word in case of doubt. The 28-year-old from Tübingen is also an enthusiastic player, but decided years ago to work as a judge out of a fascination for the complex set of rules and a desire to actively support the scene in his hometown.
Joshua Schmidt, winner of the Championship Series in Utrecht 2022, gave me some good tips for a cheap and good deck.
Anyone who is at least 16 years old and registered as a Yu-Gi-Oh! Registered Duelist and passed the online test RC1 (Rulings Comprehension Level 1) with at least 80%. If a subsequent online application is approved, you gain experience in so-called Tier 1 events, mostly in Official Tournament Stores (OTS) in the area.
As a head judge, the minimum age increases to 18 years and a written test must be taken, which is offered, for example, as part of a YCS tournament. After that, national and international tournaments are open to the participants. This offers a very good chance to be present at the big tournaments worldwide, because judges with knowledge and experience are always wanted.
With a good 3,600 registrations, the 250th YCS was one of the largest events in Europe in recent years.
In August, after the forced break caused by the pandemic, the first Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championships (WCS) after 2019 in Berlin this time in Japan. Not only in the trading card game, but also in Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links and Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel is then ranked number one in the world. I will definitely follow the games in the summer with great interest, continue to work diligently on my deck and take the exam as a referee. If not as a player, maybe I can still have a career as a judge.
