Exodia The Forbidden One is without doubt one of the strongest card mixtures in all of Yu-Gi-Oh! as a result of assembling all 5 items in your hand routinely wins you the sport, however pulling off such a feat isn’t really easy at a aggressive match. That’s why the gang went wild final weekend on the Yu-Gi-Oh! Championship Collection (YCS) Indianapolis 2023 when participant Jeffrey Leonard pulled it off not as soon as however twice on a streamed characteristic match.
Leonard began the match with a formidable 3-0 report piloting his Exodia Dracoslayer FTK (First Flip Kill) deck. Exodia is, in fact, beloved by Yu-Gi-Oh! followers as a result of it’s how Yugi Moto gained his first duel towards Seto Kaiba within the first episode of the Yu-Gi-Oh! Anime (“Exodia, OBLITERATE!”), however it’s thought-about one of many worst FTK decks within the aggressive scene. Basically, you both win the coin flip to go first and pop off with an prolonged combo that permits you to summon Exodia in a single flip, hoping and praying that your opponent doesn’t have a solution to counter it, otherwise you lose. This YCS was a serious match with nearly 2000 duelists competing, so Leonard profitable three matches in a row with Exodia received him observed and placed on digital camera for the fourth spherical of the match.
The match was a better of three contest, so Leonard must pull off his Exodia combo twice to take the win. He was paired towards veteran participant and former Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG champion Justin Singh, who was piloting the Tier-1 Tearlament deck, so he had his work minimize out for him. The primary recreation noticed Leonard get off to a rocky begin, with Singh making an attempt to interrupt his combo early on, however Leonard was nonetheless capable of string collectively the mandatory items to summon Exodia, inflicting the gang to erupt with applause and cheers.
Leonard is a pleasant, acquainted face within the Yu-Gi-Oh! neighborhood. He’s a 55 year-old participant from Florida who received into the sport so he might play along with his son, Jason, and he earned a little bit of a fame for making nice match runs with Mystic Mine Burn. Speaking to Yu-Gi-Oh! YouTuber Cimo after the match, Leonard defined that when the Yu-Gi-Oh! Grasp Duel ban record made his favourite deck unplayable, he feared the identical would occur within the TCG, so he sought out a brand new deck with FTK potential and, with some assist from his son, he finally landed on Exodia.
Within the second recreation of Leonard’s characteristic match, Singh went first and received off to such a powerful begin that Leonard merely conceded the sport on his first flip, permitting him to go first within the last recreation.
Issues didn’t look good at first within the third recreation, with Leonard solely taking part in down just a few playing cards and passing the flip to Singh. Nonetheless, Singh didn’t have any performs to make, save for setting one card facedown and passing the flip to Leonard. Screams and clapping could possibly be heard off-screen, as the gang knew this meant Leonard had one other likelihood to summon the massive man. Leonard drew what he wanted to get his combo going, permitting him to repeatedly use the impact of Blue Dragon Summoner to go looking out Exodia items from his deck. The group started chanting, “Jeffrey! Jeffrey! Jeffrey!”
With 4 items in-hand, the gang switched to, “Another piece! Another piece!” till Leonard executed the final transfer of his combo and added the fifth and last piece of Exodia to his hand, profitable the match in spectacular model. The viewers went nuts, and Leonard was grinning ear-to-ear. Even his opponent couldn’t assist however snicker and smile as he shook Leonard’s hand on the finish of the match.
“This deck shouldn’t be for profitable tournaments. It’s mainly to have enjoyable and summon Exodia, and it could possibly undoubtedly do this,” Leonard advised Cimo.
The information of Leonard’s unlikely Exodia win unfold like wildfire throughout social media, with Yu-Gi-Oh! followers celebrating the sheer awesomeness of what he pulled off.
“JEFF TAKES EXODIA TO REMAIN UNDEFEATED TO 4-0 AT THE YU-GI-OH CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES TODAY! When Justin set 1 handed and the gang exploded it was wild,” @House_of_Champs posted on X.
@galzoTCG mentioned, “Jeff Leonard profitable a YCS characteristic match with Exodia shouldn’t be what I had on my bingo card this week! F***ing genius man, unbelievable second in time.”
“Jeff Leonard profitable this characteristic match with Pendulum Exodia is now the best Yugioh stream second of all time,” declared @skyhawksings.
Sadly, Leonard’s win streak ended quickly after, and by the tip of the match he wound up inserting 591st out of 1,957 gamers. Canadian participant Steven Santoli ended up profitable the YCS along with his Rescue-ACE deck.
The final time Exodia made a giant splash on the aggressive scene was over a decade in the past when Jarel Winston piloted an Exodia Stall deck to a Prime 8 end on the 2012 Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championships.
Leonard’s unlikely win with Exodia is a reminder that though the sport has been round since 1999, and there is a lot at stake at large tournaments like these, there’s nonetheless loads of enjoyable available with the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG.