My Impressions as a First-Time Attendant at a YU-GI-OH! Tournament like YCS
If you’re a fan of Yu-Gi-Oh! and haven’t been to a big tournament, I’d recommend trying to go to the next one near you. At the tournament, you’ll be able to find vendors to buy, trade, and even sell your cards as well as places to buy card sleeves, game mats, and deck boxes. You’ll also find players preparing their decks, doing practice duels, trading, or even doing things other than Yu-Gi-Oh!.
Over the weekend I was able to attend the Team YCS Las Vegas tournament. While there, I got talking with many of the competitors and as I talked with them there was a clear answer as to what deck would be the most popular: Shaddoll Invoked. This is a deck that’s new thanks to the Shaddoll Showdown Structure Deck that recently released. It’s also one that many of the contenders noted is typically cheaper than other popular decks.
If you’re lucky, you’ll also be able to get custom tokens made with your picture! This is extremely popular and a fun little souvenir to take home.
Even if you don’t want to compete for the title of Champion, big tournaments can be fun. They typically have some more public events including Dragon Duels for younger audiences and more casual events like Duel for the Giant Cards (both Speed Duels and regular duels) where you can potentially win a comically large version of a card. I don’t think they’d allow the use of the card in an actual duel, but it would still be a lot of fun to have one to show off to friends.
The community is very welcoming and most everyone is there to have a good time. Just like any group, you’ll have jerks, but overall if you approach people, they’ll be nice and upbeat about everything. Plus, you never know who you’ll meet. I got to take a minute and quickly say “hi” to Sam from the popular YouTube channel TeamSamuraiX1 and I met and played against NFL Super Bowl Champion Ryan Hunter of the Kansas City Chiefs.
It doesn’t matter how experienced you are; I recommend going to a big Yu-Gi-Oh! tournament if there’s one close by. You’ll be able to meet some cool people, watch some amazing duels, and possibly win some cool stuff.
