"Sorry I'm late, professor. I slept in. I still have a hard time adjusting to this timetable." As Bogdan barged into the classroom, panting, he apologized with a rehearsed excuse. He was up all night binge-watching Game Of Thrones on his laptop, so he slept in for class.
"Well, Brodgan…"
"It's Bogdan, sir."
"Ok, Bogdan, it's a first time, so I'm going to let it slide. But don't let it happen again." The professor scolded him.
"It won't sir, thank you." He sat down in his seat and pulled his laptop out of the bag. As he opened it, he saw his reflection in the screen. His brown hair was mess, having only been adjusted a little bit with water. He had a stubble, having only used an electric shaver instead of a razor to save time. His clothes consisted of what he took off a chair in his room full of clothes in a hurry to get dressed and on his way to the university; black shoes, black jeans and a black T-shirt with the name of a metal band on the front. His eyelids were heavy and he had brown circles under his already dark brown eyes. Student life in another country ain't easy.
"Hey, Bogdan. Hey, are you listening to me?" Ilena, a colleague from his class was trying to reach him from the row behind him.
"Huh? Oh, yeah. What is it?" He was trying to process what was going on as she startled him from dozing off. He was physically and mentally exhausted so he had a hard time concentrating on the lesson.
"I'm going with Alberto to the bar after lessons, wanna come with us?" She was kind of cute with that short haircut which actually accentuated her symmetrical physiognomy instead of giving off the usual lesbian vibe many girls that tried the style failed to avoid. As their gaze met, those green eyes of hers that turned blue near the iris looking back at him made him hesitate a bit, but he ultimately shook his head.
"Uh, no thanks, I'm going straight home. I have to get some sleep, I'm a wreck." Bogdan sighed tiredly.
"I can see that. Ok, as you wish. If you change your mind, let me know." Ilena was disappointed by the rejection.
"Thanks." And then he saw it. The corner of a booster pack was sticking out the pocket of her bag. -Hey, Ilena?
"What up? Changed your mind already?"
"No, not that. You pull any good?" He pointed at it.
"Huh? Oh, nah, all crap commons. You know of this game?"
"Do I? I've been hooked on it ever since I bought the three Power of Chaos PC games back in 2004. Taught myself how to play it by constantly dueling the computer and losing for a solid month in a trial-and-error sort of way. Then I discovered the damn thing had a tutorial which was hidden at the bottom of the menu, but by then I had already mastered the mechanics of the game. At least the Spartan training made me pretty good at it, I guess." He laughed.
"What sort of a deck do you use?" She wanted to see if he was lying based on what he would say would match with general Yu-Gi-Oh! knowledge.
"You think I'll tell my deck strategy just like that? And then see a side deck built to counter it? Let's leave it as a surprise for the match, ok? Unless you want to tell me your build, that is." He read her.
"I'll go with the same answer." She seemed pleased with what she heard.
"So, who else plays here?" Bogdan looked around the classroom.
"Nobody worth wasting time on, except Alberto, I guess. I've never played against any of them personally, but I've watched them play and they all lack skill in my opinion."
"All righty then. You know, guess I'll come with you after lessons."
"Sweet." She looked happy and relieved.
"Back row, either shut up, or leave." The professor warned them.
They were sitting at bar Mario, one of the best student bars in Genova, drinking coffee and talking about stuff. Bogdan was sipping his fourth cup with a cigarette between his fingers.
"Yo, listen up. Bogdan also plays Yu-Gi-Oh!" Ilena changed the subject.
"Cool, man. Welcome to the club. So how long have you been playing?" Alberto asked while offering a fist bump. He had a long curly hair that instead of falling down formed in a type of white man's afro which he tried to comb backwards and held in place with a large and wide elastic band colored like the Jamaican flag, and a Frank Zappa mustache and soul patch combination. He had a Che Guevara T-shirt and an elastic band on his left wrist with a marijuana leaf woven on it. He pulled a cigarette from his pack and Bogdan noticed that one was shorter than the rest of the cigarettes because a bit was broken off.
"Well, this is my fifth year. I started playing the PC games first, then with my friends in Romania and now here."
"And what sort of deck do you use?"
"Professional secret, sorry." Bogdan dodged the question.
"Oh, well, it was worth a try." Alberto shrugged.
"Plus it's a new build and I still haven't tested it yet, and I'm also working on some other decks at the same time, so I'll go with whichever does best on testing. Pretty simple decks really, low-budget, patched together from the limited card pool I have at my disposal at the moment, but it's something." Bogdan noticed Ilena sizing him up, unconvinced. "Please, Ilena, don't look at me like that, I'm not one you should underestimate, my card pool is limited, but not that limited, and I think you'll find the decks quite surprising, if they work in praxis as well as in theory, that is."
"Then I think we should put some, if not all decks, to the test."
"No problem, just pick the time and place."
"Tomorrow, after lessons, at Piazza de Ferrari. And try not to chicken out."
"Don't you worry your pretty little head about me, I'll be there. Same goes for you, I don't want to stand there alone like an idiot."
"Well, let's just say you'll stand like an idiot after I bitch slap you around the whole square."
"Remains to be seen." He smiled confidently.
"Don't take me so lightly just because I'm a girl, Bogdan." Ilena smiled, but Bogdan sensed a faint sign of threatening behind her smile.
"Oh, no, no, not at all. Gender doesn't play any role here. But don't take me lightly too just because I'm a foreigner who doesn't know stuff around here yet."
"Remains to be seen." She laughed.
"Now I'm noticing tension building up here, shots being fired, that kind of thing, so you both should cool your jets a little because it's a Yu-Gi-Oh! duel, not a Mexican standoff, but just so that you know, Bogdan, she's pretty good." Alberto said.
"Also, I won't use my tourney deck since you're not ready for that kind of firepower until you finish testing and build one yourself, but it should be adequate for the situation." Ilena added.
"More underestimating. Ok then, I'll split now, I wanna be rested for tomorrow because I'm on the verge of collapsing, and make some last adjustments and preparations. Bye all."
"Ciao, Bogdan." Ilena waved him off.
"You ready for this, Bogdan?" They were standing next to the fountain, duel disks strapped to their left arms and Google Glasses connected via Bluetooth to their duel disks calibrated to project Solid Vision in absence of hologram projectors, which were installed only in special dueling arenas. This was the solution for casual street duels, and anyone who wanted to spectate, if in possession of said glasses could connect via Bluetooth and see what they saw. To people without Google Glasses duelists in a street duel would simply look like madmen screaming to invisible creatures. People started gathering. Half of their class came to see this duel. Word spread out to most of the students. Bogdan figured that Alberto leaked the information. He was the most talkative from the group. He didn't mind it though. This was an opportunity to gain some fast street cred, if he were to win, of course.
"Are you?" He responded with a question.
"I like your attitude, but I hope you're not all talk."
"Heh, you'll see soon enough."
"Ok, let's get this started. Since I feel generous, I'll let you go first."
"Thanks, very gentlemanly of you, Ilena, but I'm more inclined to believe that you underestimate me, not that you're generous. Try not to go easy on me, ok?"
"Don't worry, first draw is the only advantage you get from me. Going easy on people is against my principles."
"Glad to hear that. Ok, then. I summon Iron Chain Serpent in attack position, then I activate the spell card Dimensional Fissure. Now every monster is banished instead of going to the graveyard. Then I set a card and end my turn." Bogdan initiated the duel.
"I activate the field spell card Geartown. Then I blow it up with Mystical Space Typhoon. When Geartown is destroyed I can special summon an "Ancient Gear" monster from my deck." As the clunky buildings made of rusted metal with various gears and cogs sticking out of them arose from the ground, a tornado swept in and took them apart again. She took the deck out of the disk, searched for a card and put it back in. The disk shuffled the deck automatically. "And I special summon Ancient Gear Gadjlitron Dragon in attack position." Ancient Gear Gadjlitron Dragon opened his mouth and a machine gun came out of it, and rocket launchers came out of his shoulders and wings. He prepared to fire his weapons when Bogdan interrupted.
"I activate my set trap card Threatening Roar. I know that when Ancient Gear Gadjiltron Dragon attacks you can't activate spell or trap cards until the end of the damage step, but he hasn't attacked yet as you see, which means it's still main phase 1, not battle phase. And Threatening Roar makes you skip your battle phase for this turn. Please, finish your turn."
"That is all. You seem to have done your homework." Ilena declared the end of her turn.
"I told you not to underestimate me. I don't just focus all my time and energy on deck building, I also study other decks' play styles so I can determine their strengths and weaknesses. My turn. I activate my spell card Double Summon. Now I have two normal summons this turn. I summon Iron Chain Coil and Banisher of the Radiance. And since Iron Chain Coil is a tuner, I tune these two level three monsters to synchro summon my level six Iron Chain Dragon. Of course you know, these two monsters go directly out of game due to Dimensional Fissure' effect. Now I activate Iron Chain Serpent's effect. It can become an equip spell card and attach itself to an opponent's monster, and that monster loses 800 attack points, and when it's destroyed while this card is equipped on it, you must discard cards from the top of your deck equal to the monster's level. So Ancient Gear Gadjitron Dragon's original 3000 attack points are now decreased to 2200, meaning Iron Chain Dragon is stronger now. So I attack your Ancient Gear Gadjitron Dragon with my Iron Chain Dragon. And when he inflicts battle damage you must discard three cards from the top of your deck. So, eight cards for Ancient Gear Gadjitron Dragon's level plus three from Iron Chain Dragon's effect make eleven cards total and you lose 300 life points of battle damage. And all monsters among those cards go out of game, so you can't tamper with your graveyard and pull off some nasty combos. So, if we take into consideration that you have 40 cards in your deck, since it's common sense that it's best to keep it at minimum because you have the best chance to draw what you need, that means you just lost over a quarter of your deck in my second turn, and minus the six cards you drew at the beginning of your turn, that makes your deck be at 23 cards, 22 if you count your next turn's draw, which is about half of the deck. Of course you may have more than 40 cards, but that changes almost nothing as it might only postpone the deck-out by at most one more turn, by the way things are going. And I guess I have destroyed your back-up OTK strategy to fuse all Machine monsters from your field and graveyard with Overload Fusion and send them out of game in order to fusion summon an insanely powerful Chimeratech Overdragon and obliterate my life points. I figure you have that OTK strategy implemented in your deck, since the "Ancient Gear" archetype, being all-machine, is perfect for it and all it takes to do it is a Cyber Dragon and Overload fusion." She was taken aback, as it hit her like a sledgehammer. He read her deck down to the last card. It was obvious to her from the beginning that his deck was far from perfect, a simple combination of cards provided in a "structure deck" product and a five-card archetype. Dirt cheap, and all cards are commons. What she only now realized is that he was using her as an experiment to test the overall functionality of his deck and find the weak spots in it so he can try to improve it. Or find himself, establish his play-style preference. And he was right. She was taking him lightly and he used that to his advantage to completely take her by surprise and greatly reduce her chances of drawing something good and winning. And if things kept going the way they started, she was in danger of decking out and losing. "I set this last card and end my turn." Bogdan smiled. He noticed the expression of fear on her face as the realization of what he was doing hit her.
"I equip the spell card Spirit Burner to your Iron Chain Dragon and with its effect I switch it to defense position. Now I normal summon Ancient Gear Knight, then I activate another field spell card Geartown, and I blow it up again with Mystical Space Typhoon. Since it's destroyed I get to special summon another "Ancient Gear" monster from my deck. And I summon Ancient Gear Chimera. Battle! I attack Iron Chain Dragon with Ancient Gear Knight. Since your dragon has only 1300 defense points he's no match against my Knight's 1800 attack points, so it kicks the bucket. Now Ancient Gear Chimera, attack him directly!" The mechanical beast lunged at Bogdan, propelled by its hydraulic-powered hind legs and mauled him. "Iron Chain Dragon is banished, and the equip card Spirit Burner goes to my graveyard. You're down to 5700 life points while I have 7700 life points. Your turn."
"Smart. By summoning a monster with a lesser level you lower the amount of cards Iron Chain Serpent can remove from the deck, if by any chance I were to use it again. And you were right, good call. I summon another Iron Chain Serpent and I activate my trap card Return from Another Dimension. Now I can special summon as many removed from play monsters as I can by paying half my life points, which reduces me to 2850 life points and the monsters will be destroyed at the end of my turn. And I summon Iron Chain Dragon, Iron Chain Serpent, Iron Chain Coil and Banisher of the Radiance. Now I perform a synchro summoning with the exact same monsters as before and synchro summon another Iron Chain Dragon. Now I attach the two Iron Chain Serpents on your Ancient Gear Chimera and lower its attack points by 1600 attack points, 800 for each Serpent. Now it has only 700 attack points. And I attack it with one Iron Chain Dragon. You lose 1800 life points and twelve cards from the top of your deck since Chimera's level is six and there were two Serpents on it, so the effect stacks. Add to those twelve three more because Iron Chain Dragon inflicted battle damage, and you have to mill 15 cards and all monsters among them are banished due to Dimensional Fissure. Now I attack Ancient Gear Knight with my second Iron Chain Dragon and you lose 700 life points and three more cards. Now you have 5200 life points and two or three cards left in your deck. Before your turn ends the one Iron Chain Dragon that was brought from out of game with Return from Another Dimension's effect is destroyed, and one remains. Your turn." She was in panic. After the turn's draw phase she was left with only three cards remaining in her deck, which meant three more turns at most if he doesn't mill them out of game like he did with the rest of her deck. She always built her decks with 41 cards for that added extra option and because between 40 and 41 cards, the difference the extra card made to the probability to draw X card was insignificant. Also it was an excellent decision not to summon another Gadjiltron, because by now she would've lost by decking out. But, she had to do it now. It was either to risk decking out and take her chances, or lose her remaining life points.
"I activate the only card in my hand, Geartown, then I activate my last copy of Mystical Space Typhoon to destroy it and summon my second copy of Ancient Gear Gadjitron Dragon. He was at the bottom of my deck, so that saved him from your deck destruction. Some luck, huh? I prayed that he wouldn't be milled out of game. Now, I attack your Iron Chain Dragon with Ancient Gear Gadjitron Dragon. You lose 500 life points and now have 2350 life points. I end my turn." Ilena finished her turn with a smile. Bogdan drew his card. He knew he overextended and spent his hand, so he was reduced to top decking. The only monsters in his deck that had over 2000 attack points are his Iron Chain Dragons. And she destroyed two out of three. His deck was relying on a quick deck destruction to win, or to reduce his opponent's life points to zero by weakening his monsters with Iron Chain Serpent enough for his dragons to overpower them. But this dragged on for too long. At this moment the most he could hope for was to find a way to protect himself for one more turn, or to force her to discard her last card in her deck in this turn, so that she wouldn't have any cards left for her draw phase and lose. The card he drew was crucial. He flipped it face-up towards him and burst into laughter.
"What? What are you laughing about?" She asked, frightened. The crowd was murmuring.
"I won, that's what. I activate my spell card Book of Eclipse. All your monsters are flipped into face down defense and when I end my turn, they're flipped in face up defense and you draw one card for each monster that was affected by this effect at that moment. So you get to draw your last card for your only monster in my turn, and when your turn comes, you won't have any cards left in your deck for drawing in your draw phase, and you will lose automatically. There's nothing you can do to prevent it." Ilena was shocked. The crowd was applauding. Then, suddenly, her expression changed from shocked to a confident smile which startled Bogdan.
"Maybe I can't stop you from making me draw my last card, but that doesn't mean the duel is over. The one who actually lost… is you." She pointed at him. The crowd watching the duel instantly went silent, with only Alberto smiling as he understood what had transpired.
"I don't get it. I'm about to end my turn, and when your draw phase comes you'll lose because you have no cards left in your deck. How can you avoid that?!" Bogdan cried.
"Pass the turn to me and I'll show you" Ilena teased him.
"Ok, I'll bite. Your turn."
"Instead of drawing, Spirit Burner allows me to add it from my graveyard to my hand. You have only 2350 life points left, and Gadjiltron, which flips back face-up after Book of Eclipse's effect wears off will wipe them out with its 3000 attack points. I win." Nobody reacted for full ten seconds. Bogdan had his index finger raised and his mouth open, ready to object. His finger then curved a little, as he closed his mouth, finally wrapping his head around what happened just now. Alberto just stood there, a cigarette in his mouth, grinning as if he saw that coming a mile away. How good is he if he anticipated that and I didn't?
"Duuuuude." Bogdan approached her, finally breaking the silence. "I have never, ever, seen, heard, or read about someone ever surviving a complete deck-out before. Like, ever. Well, you would've lost if I had Macro Cosmos out instead of Dimensional Fissure, which I preferred solely because of the fact that it's a spell card and I can play it right away, but still, you blew my mind away!" Bogdan was thrilled. Ilena shrugged shyly, chuckling.
"It truly was an excellent duel. Very tense and indecisive until the last card was played. Every turn each one of us made a comeback. That's a real duel, and the most fun one I've had in a long time. And you would have defeated me if Spirit Burner got milled, I never would've even noticed it being in the graveyard."
"But still, even though clearly my experimental deck was up against a completed, perfected and competitive deck, you played it very skilfully. Anybody else would've tried to boss rush me and lost." He offered her a handshake and she accepted it with a smile on her face.
"Dude, the duel rocked!" Alberto exclaimed. "At first I was like: Bogdan will win this, then I was like: Ilena has him exactly where she wants him, then: he has this in the bag, and then: Oh, my god, Ilena practically won this duel, and then I was like…"
"We get the picture Alberto, don't soil yourself." Ilena laughed. He had no idea what was going on. Bogdan thought.
They were sitting at Mario's again, discussing today's duel. "I guess this deck isn't your main deck, right?" Ilena asked.
"No, I have a few more I'd like to test out before I pick a main, but this duel gave me a few important pointers about the strengths and weaknesses of this deck. I still have a lot of work to do. I just know that it will definitely be a synchro deck. I still have to figure out what sort of strategy am I going to synchro summon with."
"By the way, Bogdan, I suggest you build your deck as soon as you can so you can sign up for the national Shonen Jump Tournament hosted in Milan which is three days from now." Alberto said.
"But, aren't we going to go to lessons?"
"We arranged for our colleagues to write our names, university numbers and signatures for us, so we can fake that we're present at the lessons. If you want to come with us to Milan, we can arrange the same thing for you too." Ilena answered.
"Hmm… Ok, I'll come with you. What are the prizes?"
"Free boosters and promo cards for every participant, a limited edition card for top sixteen, money prizes for top eight, and for first, second and third place trophies, money prizes, and limited edition tournament-only cards." Ilena said.
"And how many days will it last?"
"Just two days, the Italian branch of Upper Deck Entertainment organizes the tournament and pays for hotel all costs except room service. We only need money for room service, train tickets and food and drinks during the tournament. And take with you your trade binders, you might want to trade for some good cards."
