Geek-Culture News
Yu-Gi-Oh! Championship Series Long Beach breaks world record
Posted 12:26 pm on Friday, April 6th, 2012 by Chris Del Castillo
YCS Long Beach was an event no one could have expected or prepared for. What was originally a 2-day event (Saturday and Sunday) could have been considered a 3-day event. On Friday, March 23rd, 2,223 players pre-registered for the main event, which took around 6 hours. All around the Long Beach Convention Center, Duelists from all over the the US and different countries came to compete in the 100th Yu-Gi-Oh! Championship series. They competed for not only pride and skills, but also to receive a special YCS 100th only Tour Bus mat.
On Day 0 (pre-registration day), people arrived as early as 8am and waited until 1pm to turn in their deck lists for their mats and chance to enter. By 7pm it was confirmed that 2,223 players had already pre-registered, which was quite an accomplishment. Pre-registering wasn’t the only reason people were there, many were scrambling to pick up the cards they needed to build their competitive deck from both vendors and other duelists. Others tested their builds with friends and strangers, and the convention center area was full even after the hall was closed.
Day 1 began once again with huge lines of people waiting to register for the main event. Some people had school or work, which stopped them from coming on day 0, and the first round was to begin around 10am. However, there was still a gigantic line, so the only thing we could do was wait. Not too long after noon, an announcement was made that the Tour Bus mats were all gone. Not to fret, because anyone still waiting would get it mailed to them. Finally at 1pm Round 1 began, and as soon as the pairings were up, it was announced that the 100th Yu-Gi-Oh! Championship Series had broken a world record, which once belong to Magic the Gathering, with more than 4,200 players playing Yu-Gi-Oh! Konami even needed to rent out more of the convention center to make room for all the extra duelists.
As we talked about in a previous video we made and with so many players in attendance, you can only imagine the decks people had brought over. The top 4 were Heroes, Darkworlds, Chaos Piper and Dino Rabbits, with Chaos Piper being the most unexpected deck in the top. But with two days of non-stop dueling and an insane amount of people gathered, anything is possible.
For more information on decks, duels, event info and winners, you can check out Konami’s Yu-Gi-Oh! event page.
That wasn’t all. While the main event happened, people tried to watch the pro duelists near the finals. Side events were happening on both days which included Win a Mat, Attack of the Giant Card, Structure Deck tournaments, and Retro duels. And for people who didn’t get so far in the YCS tournament, there was a regional qualifier for a chance to get their invite. For younger duelists, aside from joining the main tournament, there were also Dragon Duels which allowed duelists under 12 to face off against other young duelists to find the best duelist in that age range, which itself had some great prizes, and ability to hold a title.
Player or not, it’s still amazing that YCS more than doubled its last year’s attendance. YCS isn’t over as it travels the US and will eventually end in Tokyo, Japan, for the World Championship, with players representing all over the world to see who is the best duelist.
It was a crazy and fun 3 days. I saw so many decks and top players while making friends with duelists from Europe and Asia. Yu-Gi-Oh! is a phenomenon all over the world and still growing with more events and cards.
Growing up Chris watched a lot of the original Saturday morning cartoons and developed a love for arts and animation. Growing up he tried his hand at animation and eventually script writing, but even more his love of video games, anime and technology grew.
