Wow, it’s Friday already. The last week certainly flashed by in a hurry. I was constantly busy and worked 10+ hour days on 4 of the 5 days this week. Plus, there’s a coverage just around the corner, so no rest for me this weekend. But let’s start from scratch.

At the beginning of the week, I kickstarted my new project TCG Source. It’s a new website where I try to collect all the important news about the Yu-Gi-Oh! and the WoW TCG – the two trading card games that are most dear to me. I already published an article there, trying to explain what the site is about. Basically, you simply need to visit it once a day and you’ll (soon) know exactly what’s going on in Yu-Gi-Oh! and WoW world. It’s as simple as that! One great example is the info page about the YCS Brighton. After you’ve read over it, you won’t have any questions and you’ll know exactly how to get there, how much it costs and where you can spend the nights.

The site’s still in Beta mode, though. I need more staff to update it regularly and there are also some more sections that are supposed to go live in the upcoming week. Until then, you may want to already become a fan on Facebook or follow its Twitter feed!

Then there’s yet another weekly column which went live just a few minutes ago on eTCG.de: The Plus Community. In it, I’m trying to draw a few connections between card prices and some weird ways in which the Yu-Gi-Oh! community is acting.

I also spent all Wednesday trying to break down Yu-Gi-Oh! into as few words as possible. So if you don’t know what the whole buzz about this exciting game is about, check out this article on GameHead.com: Beginner’s Guide: Yu-Gi-Oh! (I just realized the good people running the site were so happy with the article it made it all the way into the featured slider on the main page. Guess it paid out to invest so much time in it).

Still, tomorrow’s gonna be the busiest day of the week (that’s a Spanish proverb, by the way), as I’ll be doing coverage of the “Battle of Cards” in Hamburg. It’s a gigantic 2 day tournament and thank’s to some prizes sponsored by tcgmarket.eu, it will draw in quite a few players. You can follow all the action on eTCG.de: Coverage Battle of Cards Hamburg.

Did I mention I have to finish another article for a website that’s gonna be relaunched in a few days? Well, that concludes this blog post, hope you guys will enjoy your weekend!

When you’re reading this, I’m somewhere between Leipzig and Vienna. Tomorrow, the Austrian WoW TCG Nationals will take place and my good friend and fellow Bootcamp L.E. member Lukas Heihs was kind enough to invite Christian, Ronny and myself over to help out as staff on site!

You were probably already guessing correctly what I’d be doing and yes, you’re right, there’ll be a cool coverage of the event that will go live on Warcraft-TCG.de! It’s certainly been a while since I’ve been doing (German) coverage for the WoW TCG, but I think I can still put something together that will both inform and entertain you guys.

As always, if you have any questions or feedback regarding the coverage, get in touch with me (easiest way is ICQ: #44734926)! I’ll probably be providing you with updates via my twitter feed, so be sure to check that out as well!

The last few weeks have been rather busy, but at the same time very successful. I didn’t really find the time to update my blog, so here goes:

• On Thursday, the 29th of September, my first article for GameHead.com went live. In it, I’m talking about the growing process of a “typical TCG player”. You should totally take a closer look: The Way of the Gamer.
• What if… there would be no internet? is the title of an article as part of my weekly column that went live on Friday, the 30th of September. In it, I’m trying to make all the Yu-Gi-Oh! players aware of all the good (and bad) things that the internet introduced to their lives. Playing a TCG would be rather different without it, so I guess it’s also worth a read.
• The next article went live on DailyMetagame.com. This time, I was introducing the recent project of the Bootcamp L.E. to a broader public. We opted to not attend the National Championship and instead promoted the WoW TCG at a fair in Leipzig. This is how we did it: Bye Bye Nationals.
• I also found the time to write another weekly column for eTCG.de, this time talking about: The Rise of the Monsters in the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG. While they didn’t really play a major role in years past, they are now the defining card type in every deck!

Naturally, that’s not all that went down in the past few weeks. I’ve also published some articles on Trading-Cards.eu and made a lot of progress with various projects for my company nexTab.de (sweet Jesus, this post looks like a link farm…).

The next few days will also be quite exciting as I’ve explored a couple of ways to move my company nexTab.de to the next level! Partly because my business partner Fabian and I have a lot of cool ideas, but also thanks to the help of my coach and friend Majo. In case you also thought of starting your own little business, be sure to talk to Majo, he can help you stay on track and turn the company into a success.

Alright, that’s it for now. I’ll try to update the blog a little more regularly in the upcoming few days and also tell you about a cool new project that might go live this week!

P.S.: The upcoming weekend, I’ll be doing coverage for the Austrian Nationals! Be sure to check it out, it’ll go live on Warcraft-TCG.de.

The past weekend, I was busy doing coverage for the Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championship 2011. It was the second time I’ve been at Worlds (after I head judged the 2008 World Championship) and it has been a very rewarding experience again! (I’d also like to point out that both times I’ve been there, a Japanese player won – if that ain’t reason enough for the Konami headquarters to fly me in for all future World Championships, I don’t know what is!)

Given the special nature of the event, we couldn’t generate some of the most sought-after content (e.g. Feature Matches) – we didn’t want to put even more pressure on a player who was already fighting on the world’s highest stage by exposing all of his plays to a huge audience. This led to some negative feedback as expected, but I think that PJ and I were still able to provide you with a great live impression of what was going on on site, even with the restrictions in place.

I really had a blast in Amsterdam and am very happy to have been part of this special tournament! Granted, there were a few disappointments (lack of cocktail bars in Amsterdam), but all things considered, I wouldn’t have wanted to miss out on the event.

Speaking of memorablia, I was lucky enough to get my hands on one of the exclusive Utopia playmats that have been given out this weekend. It’s the exclusive Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championship 2011 Playmat and it’s already changed hands on eBay for more than 400,- €. I considered keeping it, but I honestly can’t pass such an opportunity and put my playmat up for auction. Go check it out and send me a price suggestion, here’s the link one more time: Worlds Playmat.

If you’ve been to Amsterdam and / or enjoyed following up on the coverage, leave a comment below and let me know what you thought about the event / the coverage!

Alright folks, I’m off to Madrid. Gotta catch a plane to arrive at the hotel in time for some pre event briefing and other preparation stuff.

You can check out the live coverage of the World Championship Qualifier: European Championship on the official Konami website. Additionally, there’s a chance I can keep you posted on Twitter, but don’t count on it!

For feedback regarding the coverage, you can reach me via ICQ (#44734926), the aforementioned Twitter, maybe Facebook (guess I won’t have the time to be active there), even less likely Google+, but most certainly on eTCG.de (although I might not reply immediately, I WILL read your feedback there)! See you in Madrid!

Although I was mighty busy producing a number of articles for the Official Coverage of the YCS Paris, I still found the time to take some videos during breaks. If you wanna watch them one after another, go and check out my Playlist of the YCS Paris.

Alternatively, here’s a full list:

• YCS Paris – taking a look at the venue prior to the start of the tournament
• YCS Paris – Master Player Lists are up!
• YCS Paris – Opening Announcements / Player Briefing
• YCS Paris – End of Round 1
• YCS Paris – Prior to the beginning of Round 2
• YCS Paris – Oli macht Pause (deutsch)
• YCS Paris – Taking a look at the YCS Trial on Day 2
• YCS Paris – The Top 32 come to a close!
• YCS Paris – Award Ceremony
• YCS Paris – Introduction to the Finals!

Let me know what you think and leave a comment!

As you will certainly know by now, there’s another European YCS heading your way. At least if you’re living in Paris; if not, it’s time to get going and make your way to the French capital (and before you get lost, be sure to check out my little travel guide)!

We expect plenty of players, 800 or more will most likely make the trip and spend some days (and nights – pun intended) in Paris. To handle all of those people, we’ll have a fantastic staff team on site, with more than enough judges to answer your every question. You might have already guessed it (as I’m speaking of “we”): I’ll be a member of the staff team as well. Once again, yours truly will be doing coverage together with some amazing people from Konami and last, but certainly not least, my good friend PJ Tierney.

As always, our coverage will feature

• Quick Questions
• Deck Features
• Feature Matches
• Pictures
• Statistics (metagame breakdown, etc.)
• and more!

So there’s plenty of stuff in it for you. You can find the coverage at TCG.Konami-Europe.net/Coverage.

In case you want to provide us with feedback or care to share your ideas with us, you can reach me via ICQ / AIM (ICQ #44734926), e-mail (soulwarrior@soulwarrior.net) or Twitter (@soul_warrior – you may also follow the feed on the right hand side of this page). It’s also possible to get a hold of me while the event is actually taking place (it’s most likely I’ll reply fast on ICQ, then Twitter and expect me to need some time to realize an e-mail just came in).

One last thing: We’re very much interested in crazy deck ideas (preferrably those of the successful kind). If you’re playing in the YCS and you’re running something we’ve never seen before, be sure to send us a copy of the list prior to the event (please make sure it’s formatted correctly; that means proper English card names) – like NOW! This will raise your chance of getting a deck feature AND make our jobs easier, so it’s a win win! You don’t have to explain the whole strategy of the deck, but we would like to know what makes your deck so special, so give us a little heads up.

That’s it for now. Expect the live features to go up on Saturday at around 11 AM. I hope to see you at the YCS or hear from you during / after the event!

P.S.: Check out the official Konami site for the latest information about the event.

Yesterday, the “Epiphany Tournament 2011″ (that’s a literal translation, the German name is “Turnier der Heiligen Drei Könige” or just “HDK”) was held. I was live on site and thanks to the help of Ronny, I was able to provide all you crazy duelists out there with a live coverage until 10 pm. Then Ronny (and the internet in his pocket) left, so the rest got uploaded today.

The final result is quite cool. We got a number of Feature Matches, Top 8 Decklists, a little Blog as well as some Deck Features. On top of that, I posted a few updates on Twitter and uploaded a Playlist on YouTube.com with 6 videos! Take a look and let me know what you think: Live-Coverage of the HDK 2011.

Grazie, Italia!

I’ve returned from my trip to Milan where I helped out as part of the coverage team. Let’s start by saying that this was one of the best Yu-Gi-Oh! tournament experiences I’ve had outside of Germany (if you’re on foreign ground, it’s always a little different compared to your homecountry – that’s not me trying to say that tournaments in Germany are better than tournaments anywhere else in the world, it’s just that there’s no language barrier involved in German tournaments, etc. and therefore it’s an entirely different thing).

The tournament was a roaring success with more than 900 players making their way to our venue near the Malpensa airport! I wasn’t expecting such an international audience; I was pleasantly surprised to see so many Swiss, French, British, German and Spanish players in Milan. Although our staff was one writer short compared to Bochum, we were able to produce an almost identical amount of content (in terms of the number of articles, we were only 1 behind). Additionally, we played one round less, so that meant we had less time to write all these articles. It might be hard to grasp if you’ve never worked in a coverage team, but that meant we improved quite a lot and not just “a little bit”. It’s cool to be part of a team that keeps on growing and getting better!

That’s not all, though. What fascinated me just as much was the fact that I only interacted with extremely helpful and pleasant people all weekend. Starting with my arrival at the Malpensa airport, continuing with my check in at the hotel and so on, I couldn’t have asked for better treatment. Italy really set the example for me over these 4 days and I hope my future trips will be just as enjoyable!

Back to the tournament; we had a great Top 32 featuring players from 11 different nations. This trend continued throughout the Tops, until it was France vs. the UK in the finals. Noel Garde (France) won the first Duel against Mat Collins (UK), but the Brit started an epic comeback with lots of memorable moves. Even if you’re not a big fan of Feature Matches, you absolutely have to check out the Final Feature Match!

The coverage can be found here: Official Coverage YCS Milan. I would really appreciate some feedback, so if you spot some mistakes or awkward wordings / phrasings, please let me know. I want to improve and provide you with an even better coverage experience in the upcoming tournaments next year!

P.S.: I uploaded 2 videos to YouTube.com: Deck Profile Mario Richert and A closer look at the Top 32.

If you’ve been following my blog the past weeks, you knew that the DMF Antwerp was held the past weekend. After all, I organized a trip to the event. Here are some bits about it:

Our drive couldn’t have gone much better. That is, considering that the holidays started on that very weekend for Nordrhein-Westfalen and there were some smaller traffic jams. And Antwerp being a pain in the ass for car drivers as it’s full of one way streets. If you’ve taken a wrong turn, you were often forced to drive around the whole block as there was just no other way and you had to follow one one way street after another until you finally got back to one of the few “bigger” streets. Anyway, the city was decent enough so we set foot in it on Friday evening and took a walk to the local game store… only to find out that everybody was leaving.

Well, that was almost that for Friday evening. I didn’t playtest a lot prior to the event and couldn’t come up with any fancy ideas, so I just stuck with the “best deck” that the Bootcamp playgroup came up with: Timmo Shadestep. The deck WAS good, however, I wasn’t. I made some misplays and started with a 0 – 2 record.

I was able to equal my score in the following 2 rounds, but already asked prior to the start of round 3 if I could help working on the coverage if I would drop out of the tournament. Carl Crook, the Organized Play and Sales and Marketing and everything Manager for Cryptozoic in Europe appreciated it, so I almost thought the tournament was over for me (as a player). After a mirror match I lost in round 5 (at least this time I made no misplays!), I dropped and set myself the goal of writing as many articles as the other writer Robbe. I love competition! Robbe was a nice guy, but had next to no experience, so I thought it could be possible to catch up despite him having had 5 more rounds to write articles.

At the end of the day, I was 2 articles short (9 compared to Robbe’s 11), but I think I still didn’t do too bad. You can check everything out right here: Live Coverage DMF Antwerp!

Fortunately, some members of the Bootcamp were a little better prepared than myself, so Ronny Schmertosch and Christian Kurze both stole a spot in the top 8, playing their respective versions of the Zaritha deck that Karl Rößler, another member of our team, has been playing and tweaking for quite a while now.

In the end, it was Christian who claimed the win for the team! He ended up with the better match-ups and took out each and every opponent this weekend without ever losing a single round, giving him a perfect 17 – 0 record in games (which translates to a 14 – 0 record in matches – the top 8 were all best of 3)! He’s rather new to the game, so for me this is a great example what an amazing community like the Bootcamp can do for an individual; you pick up the game A LOT faster and learn about some of the more advanced moves in no time! You end up with useful decklists that can help you earning a title like a DMF win!

Right after the event, we drove back to Berlin. This time without the traffic jams, so we were “only” on the road from 7 pm (Sunday) to 3 am (Monday). Thanks to some energy drinks, the whole trip went without any incidents! For me, it was a rewarding experience to do something for the German community by organizing a little trip to the event and also doing something for the community as a whole by working as a member of the staff.

Let me know what you think about the coverage and leave your 2 cents about the event! I’m looking forward to seeing some of the amazing guys again next year, either in Paris or in Cologne!