Day 2 at WCS2012 (Event day 1)

Hi Everyone! Ok here is the full update for the day! Click on! (Bewarned, lots of photos coming your way!)

Trophies for Expert class! Look exact same for Junior class too

 2nd place card: Legendary Magician of Dark

Rank 7 - 3 x level 7

Spellcaster / Dark / 2500 ark / 2100 def

 "Must be xyz summoned and cannot be special summoned by other ways. If this card attacks your opponent directly and reduces their life points to 0, while it has an xyz material attached that was originally Spellcaster-type, you win the match." 

 Champion card: Legendary Dragon of White

Rank 8 - 3 x level 8

Dragon / Light / 3000 ark / 2500 def

 "Must be xyz summoned and cannot be special summoned by other ways. If this card attacks your opponent directly and reduces their life points to 0, while it has an xyz material attached that was originally Dragon-type, you win the match." 

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And here is the entire day's events in a nut shell! Have tons of photos so not going to type too much.

We had breakfast early morning in the hotel at 7am (So i slept only 3.5 hours lol) After that I had to take attendance and check the asia people are all accounted for before we set off!

 Here we are! Well at least this is the poster pasted all over the place. Couldnt really take a photo of the place since we came in from the bus entrance. To see what the place looks like, check out here!

Here we are! Ok, so basically this area is only allowed for 3 groups of people.

1. Staff (duh)

2. Guardians / Translators / Distributors

3. Lucky people who got entry through a V-Jump lucky draw held previously. 

These lucky people got the same black tote bag that we got (though everyone, including public got that) which came with a little extra something. A CNo playmate! Good stuff here, though at least they didnt get the Legendary monsters mat or I will be very jealous.

Started off with everyone getting squashed into the player's holding area. Honestly a little bit small but at least they made sure there were sufficient chairs and drinks for everyone anytime from a fridge.

Calling for all players to place their decks into the deck box for submission to judges for deck check...

Couldnt resist a photo. These are the Mexico masked wrestlers! I mean duelists! First thing I thought of was Austin Power's Dr Evil and Mini Me lol~

TV crew is here to do a special program! Apparently there will be a special program put up on Terebi Tokyo on  17 November, 12pm to 1pm for the tournament. Not sure why its so late though. Show name is still pending. They told me that it was tentatively "Yu-Gi-Oh Official Card Game Zexal something something" lol!

Mr Ander giving a briefing to all the players on points to note for the day. Honestly quite a nice head judge, though to be fair I have only seen 2 so far.

 Television interview time! I seem to recall the lady on the left as a talk show host but honestly dont recall.

 With everyone waiting for the tournament to start, it was time for me to go explore the public area! First stop, YGO card database and Bam (some kinda quiz computer game for YGO on Facebook) stations. Didnt really get a chance to use them, hopefully can do so tomorrow.

 Here are the Junior class players! I kinda liked the idea that it seemed so spread out

And here is the Expert class tournament for all 26 faces! However apparent 1 of the USA players Rubio was not able to make it due to something at home, so only 25 players played. This was done by having 1 player getting a bye every round.

Lucky draw part 1! This is sorta a guess the champion game, but available to public, since the actual guess the champion game is only available to the invited guests. Basically you just vote for who you think will make it to top 8. Prizes was 3 packs of Duelist Edition 3 and 4 lol.

Then there was a voting corner of where people would want WCS2013 to be held. I cant help but think players would want it in their own countries since it means more freebies and stuff for everyone so I won't be suprised if all the votes are for Japan.

 And here is the free duel area! This is some of the events for the grade school students and younger, basically with tutorials and free duel segments. Apparently there was a free duel style event where you just kept playing to chalk up as much wins per hour, then the more you play, the more tournament packs you get. Interesting idea, but prize is rather boring lol. Saw a kid walking out with easily 20+ packs in hand...

Survey question corner. Basically had questions like what cards would you like to be in the next gold series, what structure deck will you want next (More machines please!) and just basically asking for suggestions to improve.

Photo taking area! Basically they had 2 cards put up, with the card text stating something along the lines of this was taken at WCS2012 in tokyo. Nice idea since it has card text and good to have a physical card (Thought maybe crazy people could do Ju-on style photos) but seems kinda cheapo considering the nice computer stations manned by people doing tokens last year.

 Some kinda ball throwing game, throw in more to get more tournament packs (tons of them here today)

Wondering why Yuuma is behind? Thats cause this game is called, Katonbing dash! Basically you step as much as you can within 10 seconds to get a tournament pack lol. (Interesting ideas but these tournament mini games seem less and less YGO related by the day lol)

 Duel art segment! Had quite a few nice duel art available here. Problem is no photo taking is allowed... They even had staff manning the people to stop everyone from taking photos though I have no idea why.
(Why do I have photos then? Hmmmm, no comment!)

 And this was the free duel area which I mentioned earlier...

 Main viewing area for the public participants. Basically they see the streamed stuff here as well!

 Nice boards showing info on this year's tournaments and even photos, deck lists and info of the champion for each year of WCS2012. Notice someone familiar anyone?

And the tournament is about to start in the main area, all staff at the ready...

 Nice viewing area in front of the stage for everyone.

 And some nice video filled with explosions and flashing light showing the history of the 10 years of WCS2012. (My eyes!!!)

 And the emcee is up! Introducing the players one by one.
(Not sure if it is just me, but he honestly sounded like the guy opening for each Pokemon movie)

 Our only asia presence in the Dragon Duel / Junior class segment from Taiwan!

 Moving on to the main / Master class segment...

 Notice anything anyone?

 And thats basically all the photos!

Our Singapore rep's Wesley's first matchup! Apparently they flashed this up before each round which is good. Problem is not much info was given about standings so nobody really knew their tie breakers. Furthermore it was some customized system since the tie breakers looked nothing like Mantis. At least the basic idea of people fighting people with same amt of wins and stuff like that was still there.

First round already an internal conflict session among Asia players, Singapore vs Thailand! Wesley is seen flashing his "Heh heh I dont care who you are but I must win" smile

 For some reason even though everyone was seated, they started flashing a video about all the main characters and the important characters for all 4 seasons. Some "Gyahahahaha, funsai!!!!!" from Kaiba anyone?

 And so it begins!

 Some quick photos of the tournament area from the stage. I was there as an interpreter so I was on stage for most of the time.

 The head judge with the admin team. Apparently there was a nice database of all the cards and the different versions of the TCG card text for each card. Not bad stuff.
(Nice judging team where the head judge gets to sit and oversee the entire situation. Wish I could do this in Singapore for the next tournament! *fat hope...*)

 After first round was over I went to do more exploring. Nice big poster of the legendary monsters.

Nice hope statue! Though as expected not much people were impressed lol.

 Some famous characters you see on your V-jumps. The real life spoofed versions of Shark and Yuusei were here to do some kinda talk show! Too bad round 2 was starting soon so I couldnt stay to listen.

 And there was a nice sealed pack tournament area within the main area, meaning its only for the invited guests. Basically just queue up and you get 6 Abyss rising packs to build a 20 size card deck. Packs are free, so thats nice! Sadly it will not be here when I am probably more free tomorrow.

 Round 2 is over! Everyone getting some rest after their lunch lol.

 Basically resting around, nobody really wanted to go check out the other stuff since they are still tense.

 And we go back into the game! Well from here it is abit repetitive since I am on stage the whole time standing by to help out with translations (Look out for me on Ustream!)

 And the results are out. Here are the top 4 for our Junior segment.

And here are the top 8 for the Master Class segment!

Here are the players who made it up!

Junior Class Top 4:

Liu Yu Hao (Taiwan)

Zachary Gordon Leverett (USA)

Brandon Daniel Medrano Palumbo (Mexico)

Minami Toya (Japan)

Master Class Top 8:

Wesley Seek (Singapore)

Jarel McKay Winston (USA)

Joshua Schmidt (Germany)

Memoli Stefano (Italy)

Arimura Yohei (Japan)

Norihama Takeru (Japan)

Saito Akikazu (Japan)

Yumoto Kota (Japan)

Thats really quite alot of Japanese guys who made it, considering 4 out of 5 playing made top 8. I do have info on what each player is playing (Well, Master class at least) but I dont think it is suitable to put up so that will have to wait till end of tomorrow. I will also try to get their decklists so be sure to keep a lookout!

And thats about it! Basically we returned to the hotel where us Asia players were lucky enough to get free dinner at the nice hotel restaurant courtesy of Konami HK. After that it was blogging for me! While lots of players were spotted doing trading. Tons of Japanese players also came here with familiar faces from previous years who were not representing this time, such as Satoshi, Murakoshi and many others!

Well, glad that I am done blogging so early today. Time to go check out the players and look for any good deals. Be back with an update tomorrow!