Alright, this might as well just been the best article I’ve written in a long time. Or ever. At least from a Duelist’s perspective as I’m tackling a question that’s on every Duelist’s mind: How can I make money with Yu-Gi-Oh!?

Be warned! The article is freaking 4600+ words long, so you’ll need some time at your disposal to read through it. However, it will pay out. And you can read it part after part as I worked with lots of headers! That should certainly do in terms of spoilers, so head over: Unter den Hut geschaut: How can I make money with Yu-Gi-Oh!?

Last weekend, the World Championship Qualifier: European Championship 2010 took place. I was part of the live coverage team and tried to give you a good impression of what was happening on site. The last time I did an English coverage was roughly 2 years ago, it was the first time we worked with this team (PJ Tierney was the other writer) and everything went live on a brand new site. Still, we overcame the odds and were able to produce a good result; the website even crashed temporarily under the load.

In the end, it was Rodrigo Togores Moli who overcame more than 180 other players to win the title of European Champion 2010! He piloted the notorious Frog OTK deck, feared by a lot of Duelists, but often considered not consistent enough to win a larger tournament. Rodrigo proved the competition wrong, mastering it and taking it to a superior finish!

While the tournament couldn’t have been run much more successful from an organizational point of view, I was not entirely satisfied with my own performance. It was a little frustrating having to go over articles several times with the language barrier causing me slight problems. Even though my English is certainly not bad, it takes a lot more time to polish up an English article than a German article. The coverage system also took some getting used to and further slowed me down. I’m positive that we’ll find some ways to master these challenges in the future so my “articles per round” ratio will go up again.

Speaking of the future, the next big European Yu-Gi-Oh! event will be the first stop of the Yu-Gi-Oh! Championship Series outside of North America. It’s rather likely that I’ll be a part of the coverage team there as well and keep you guys up to date. Alright, that’s pretty much it for the moment. Just one more thing: As our editor on site had to face the same problem I did with English “only” being his second language, there might be some awkward phrases, typos or spelling mistakes in the coverage. It would be nice if you could point these out to me so I can improve and produce even better results in the future! You can find the live coverage here.

More often than not, our weekly columns talk about new deck ideas, strategies or upcoming cards. However, not only the strategies are always changing, the same remains true for everything that happens off the field. A few years ago, most Yu-Gi-Oh! players more or less looked the same. Nowadays, they could hardly look more different. Same goes for deckboxes, sleeves and a few other things.

This week’s article takes a closer look at this phenomenon, so waste no time and go check it out: Unter den Hut geschaut: Off the field.

This week, we’re taking a look at some of the anti cards in Yu-Gi-Oh! – cards, that aren’t put in your deck to support your own strategy, but rather destroy your opponent’s.

I don’t wanna lose any more words on this as there’s plenty of information in the article. So head over and read: Unter den Hut geschaut: Unregarded Anti Cards.

This week, we’re taking a look back and learn about the evolution of coverage. Most players take all the cool features we have in today’s coverages for granted, however, as my weekly column points out, we had to overcome a number of obstacles to end up where we’re now.

If you’ve been a long-time follower of the coverages, this will certainly make a great read: Unter den Hut geschaut: The evolution of coverage.

It took me a few weeks, but now I feel I’m right back where I was when my Yu-Gi-Oh! column had to take its little break. This week’s article’s got it all: Lots of footnotes, irony, a controversial topic and enough ways to interpret my messages to spark the feedback thread.

Waste no time and go check it out: Unter den Hut geschaut: The duelists’s greatest enemy.

Today, I was doing the live coverage of the eTCG.de Grand Challenge Berlin. 87 players showed up, which isn’t too bad, but we were hoping for a few more.

In the end, Matthias Dirksen claimed the title and a black Wii for himself and his team Crisis Core. I was able to write a couple of articles, shoot a few photos and film some videos. All can be found in the coverage, on my Twitter feed as well as my YouTube channel.

This week, I’m tackling the topic of close games where your only way out is to make a crucial mistake: Make use of illegal practices. If you get caught, these mistakes lead to a lot of trouble, you pretty much instantly lose your face in the TCG community.

Still, it might sound appealing in the nick of the moment and therefore, every now and then, a player makes use of these practices. Once you were caught, you will have to face lots of criticism. Some players have huge troubles dealing with the pressure from the community. What it feels like and what you can do about it is what I’m trying to explain in this week’s article: Unter den Hut geschaut: Dealing with mistakes.

All the impressions I was able to collect in Paris last weekend are slowly settling down. I have to say I felt a little overwhelmed right after the tournament. There was excitement – I had done well, in fact, better than expected if you would have asked me a day before, but then again there was also a lot of frustration. If I only would have played a little better in that one match, I could have made top 8. Top 8!

Seems like it wasn’t meant to be this time. In a way, the whole tournament now feels like a huge déjà-vu of the German Nationals last year. I was two wins away from claiming a top 8 spot there as well and it was the first larger scale tournament I participated in. Now, after being used to playing in DMF’s and Nationals more or less, it has been the first time that I participated in an even bigger tournament – the Continentals. Thankfully, I learned a couple of things and therefore, I’m rather positive that I’ll do even better next time.

Speaking of next time, I’m not entirely sure if I can make it to Worlds. Last year, I didn’t have the days off, this year, it’s ridiculously expensive. It seems like a neverending story to me and there’s no happy end in sight yet. I really don’t know what to do, as spending 1500 € on the trip is not an easy decision.

Then again, I feel confident that I can do well there. While I have not been playing on a competitive level for even a full year (German Nationals were my first bigger event and they took place last August) yet, I learned so many things in this short amount of time. The game is just so much more than what you can grasp at first and it’s an amazing experience to dig deeper and deeper into the inner workings of it. You get a “feeling” for certain moves and know when to play which cards. I would love to show off some of these skills at Worlds.

If you would be in my position, what would you do? I’m really curious and can’t wait to get some feedback!

I finally did it and found an opportunity to come together with my interview partner Mahedi Shareef. I think he’s a prime example of the change that can take place in the life of a Yu-Gi-Oh! player while he always stays true to his hobby. We touch lots of controversial topics, like his lead of the Yu-Gi-Oh! worldwide rankings, his suspension, the takeover of the game by Konami and we still don’t stop there.

The interview lasts almost 30 minutes, so I hope many of you will make it to the end and give some great feedback. What do you think of podcasts in general and do you want to listen to more of them?

Unter den Hut geschaut: Interview with Mahedi Shareef