How to Read your Opponent's Plays

Reading your opponent's plays can be difficult at best, however it is possible. If you are able to fully master being able to predict your opponent's plays, it puts you at a significant advantage over your competition. Some of the tips below may seem like common sense, but so often I see players fall into these common traps, which can often lose them the game. As long as you strictly abide by your common sense, and use the resources available to you, you will see yourself winning a far greater number of matches.


Check your opponent's graveyard

This allows you to examine exactly what cards you opponent has in their deck, as well as showing you what cards they have used up. You know that if your opponent has a Heavy Storm in their graveyard, you should be more confident in setting several spells and traps, piling pressure on your opponent. If you see your opponent mains Dimensional Prison, you should not be so thrift in Synchro Summoning a Stardust Dragon, as you know its effect will do nothing against Dimensional Prison. If your opponent still has Mirror Force and Torrential Tribute looming in their deck, you know it would not be a good idea to over extend too heavily to try and gain control, because your offensive play could easily be countered.

Many good players switch the position of their deck and graveyard from the orthodox way, so their deck essentially blocks off their graveyard making it harder to see or reach. This makes it more difficult for their opponent to make reads - but remember that the graveyard is common knowledge, and your opponent has the right to see your graveyard and vice versa.

Site Update

Since the site started a few months ago, the 'Post a Comment' button hasn't been working properly for some reason. I've changed the HTML of the site around a bit, so now when you click 'Post a Comment' a new window will pop up and you will be able to share your thoughts about certain cards etc. Enjoy!

NB. If the 'Post a Comment' button isn't showing, try clicking the name of the post, eg. for this post it will be 'Site Update', and the link should show up.

How to Prepare for a Premier Event

Dale Bellido put a really informative video on his Youtube Channel, outlining the best ways to prepare for a major event like a Shonen Jump or National Championship. For even more tips on how to prepare for a major event, I wrote an article on how to get the most out of tournaments a few months ago, which you can find here.

Looking Forward: Divine Warning

Divine Warning (Solemn Warning) DREV-JP077
Counter Trap

Activate by paying 2000 Life Points. Negate the Summon of a monster, the activation of a Spell or Trap Card with an effect that Special Summons, or the activation of an Effect Monster's effect that Special Summons, and destroy that Spell / Trap / monster.

Divine Warning is a card just out in the OCG set Duelist Revolution, and has been relatively under-hyped. In case you didn't understand its effect, it is able to stop EVERY summon in the game - this includes Gorz the Emissary of Darkness, Battle Fader, Blackwing - Shura the Blue Flame, Flamvell Firedog as well as recruiters like Mystic Tomato and Giant Rat. As well as this, it has the ability to negate normal summons, rendering cards like Gadgets and Monarchs useless.

However this effect comes at a hefty price, eliminating a quarter of your total life points. This makes the Divine Warning slightly situational - it will be difficult to pay the cost during the later stages of a game, which is when the card is the most game swinging. What made Solemn Judgment so widely played was no matter how many life points you had left, you could still activate its effect - making it a great card for late game scenarios. Divine Warning may see less play due to this.

Shonen Jump Championships Have a New Name?

Following Shonen Jump New Jersey, it appears the name of Shonen Jump Championships will change, possibly to Yu-Gi-Oh! Premier Tournaments beginning with Yu-Gi-Oh! Premiere Tournament Chantilly, VA (Washington DC) coming up in mid-may. This could be due to a conflicting name with a new series of tournaments in the Naruto TCG also named Shonen Jump Championships. Naturally this raises several questions, for example does this mean Yugioh is dropping out of the monthly Shonen Jump Magazine? Will this put an end to Shonen Jump promo cards? We will have to see in the near future.