Introduction

Well, here I am. I never thought I’d be writing a blog. However, a friend of mine convinced me that my ideas about Duel Monsters are worth sharing. Since I disdain the middle-school mentality of most bulletin boards, I decided to go out on my own (as usual) and post some articles on a blog.

I’ve been playing Duel Monsters since it debuted in America. Like everyone then, I nearly fainted when I pulled a BEWD out of one of the four booster packs I allowed myself (believing that I could enjoy the game without sinking a lot of money into it). Little did I know that a Japanese card game would become such a long-lasting fascination, or that my pack pulls weren’t actually all that great.

Some may question my credibility, as I don’t play in tournaments. The closest local tournament is 30 miles away and held on Sundays. When I was in college, I had homework, and now that I’m part of the working world, I just don’t have time to compulsively participate, as is required to really get anywhere in the tournament scene. Plus, I REALLY hate the Kaiba-esque attitudes adopted by so many tournament players and the ridiculous overpopulation of identical decks which are basically the Restricted List put into sleeves and stacked together. I hold myself apart from that, observing all aspects of the game, from cookie-cutter tournaments to casual duels with God Cards. I am a Duel Monsters Scholar. I study the game for the love of it, not for the glory, and my intention with my articles is to share ideas, examine cards, and hopefully improve the state of the game just a little bit.

My interest in Duel Monsters began when I was at home during Spring Break one year. I was channel surfing and came across the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime. I was shocked: here we had characters playing a game that closely resembled Magic: the Gathering, only without the casting costs. Now, I have had a long love/hate relationship with Magic. I was introduced to that game when Fallen Empires was the latest set. I found the basic concept to be really interesting: duels between people who have constructed different decks from a common pool of cards. However, I took great umbrage with some of the rules of Magic. Casting costs in particular made my blood boil. The inability to summon a single goblin due to being “mana screwed” was something that happened to me far too often. I even went so far as to construct my Magic deck with no cards possessing a casting cost greater than 2, but it still didn’t help. I saw Duel Monsters as a natural progression from Magic; moving from slow, convoluted, and aggravating to fast, simple, and fun. (No offence to the Magic fans out there, but that’s the way I see it.) After seeing the anime for the first time, I immediately hopped onto Google to see if Duel Monsters really existed. I discovered that it had been around in Japan since 1996 and was to be released in America by the end of the month. Joyfully, I read the online rules at Upperdeck’s site and was thoroughly impressed.

My interest in the game has lead me to amass a large collection of cards (in most cases three copies of everything playable) so I can assemble any given deck at any given time. I read almost every article posted on Pojo, Metagame, Edo, and DM Comet. I have gained a great understanding of the game from my research and practice. Hopefully I will be able to add to the pool of knowledge present in these great websites.