Love of the Draw
by Nicholas Jorvan (Masteroflag)
Chapter 1: In which Draw Blank is given a Flier
“I summon my Exxod, Master of the Guard.”
Attack: 0 Level: 8 Defense: 4000
The young colt spouted as he placed his monster on the field. “And with it I get a little effect I can then use: my flip summoned monsters to do 1000 points of damage to you a piece. I count two of them, and one is Golem Sentry which sends your Monster back into your hand. Then I’ll use their effects to put them back into face down defense mode. Now it’s your turn.”
Draw Blank grimaced. The score wasn’t looking good. Sure he had been leading the duel at first but one good set of traps later and all he had was one monster on the field. His opponent on the other hoof had 4000 life points still with him down to 1500. Meaning this was his final turn if he didn’t do something quick.
Lucky for him all this advantage taking had caused his opponent to use up all the cards in his hand leaving him with no defense outside the monsters. Granted all of them were so high in defense thanks to the field spell he couldn’t hope to do anything but destroy that Golem Sentry and hope the next draw was in his favor. Still there was a way he could win this game here and now if he had one more spell.
The colt seemed to tap one of his hind hoofs impatiently as he waited for Draw to do his namesake. “Can we get on with this now? I kind of want to go home for dinner.”
“Fine,” said Draw Blank, “You kids just don’t like dramatic tension these days do you?” He drew. And lucky him it was the one card he needed.
“Keep track here,” he said, “First I play Jurassic World to get rid of your field and replace it with my own. Next I play the spell card Big Evolution Pill. This lets me tribute my Tyranno Infinity to summon any high level Dino monster without a sacrifice. So now I summon my Black Tyranno.”
Attack: 2600 Level: 7 Defense: 1800
“So?” The colt’s confidence was obvious, “It’s still not enough to take out my Exxod. And you can only attack once anyway.”
“True,” agreed Draw Blank, “But my Black Tyranno can attack you directly if all you have is defense monsters.”
“That’s stupid,” said the colt, “Even if you do that I’ll just win next turn.”
“I never said I was done,” replied the puke green pony. “I also have the spell card, Megamorph. This doubles my monster’s attack if I have less life points than you. Meaning my Tyranno has 5500 attack points.”
“No way,” said the colt astonished, “how could you even play that? This has to be illegal.”
Draw Blank smiled, “Fraid not. So that means I win since you only have 4000 left. Good game though kid. We should do it again next time I’m in town. Now as we agreed, five bits please.”
The colt grumbled as he gathered his cards and handed over the bits. “Can we not bet next time? That was my entire allowance.”
Draw Blank looked at his opponent’s face and said simply, “Sorry, I only take money challenges. Next time don’t bet all your money on something that is still a game of chance in some cases.” With that he gave back one bit.
“Thanks mister,” the colt said smiling again, “I’ll keep that in mind in the future. See you some other time.”
“Sure kid,” said Draw Blank waving him off and gathering his own deck. And placing it carefully in to his bag with his ten other decks, not all of them from the same card game, along with the bits into his pouch with only had ten in it before.
“Well,” Draw said signing, “Least I got enough to get some food. Looks like I’ll be camping again though. I wish there was something else I was good at so I could at least afford to rent a place.”
Draw Blank turned around to look at his flank. A spinning card similar to the back of the Duel Monsters cards he had with him. Sometimes it just didn’t pay at all to be good at trading card games, especially since most ponies that played besides him were half his size and age. Any who were his age usually had other jobs that could support them. He however didn’t.
It wasn’t for a lack of trying, but his legs were too naturally weak for hard labor all day and his fumbling often got him in trouble with even the most basic of jobs. Heck even when he tried relying on what he did better than most without a mark in it, talking to customers, he still wasn’t making enough impact for anyone to keep him employed since most ponies thought he looked like he was about to keel over.
Hence the “professional” Dueling for money, which to be fair did give enough when he won the regional tournament last year. That money however was running low and he didn’t have the cash to enter again this year and he had missed it. And because of his age and the filly to colt ratio it was hard finding opponents willing to bet money in general, let alone find one someone wouldn’t call the police on when he offered. It was looking like another year of being yelled at by others this year.
Draw stretched himself before walking to find a good place to camp before the sun set. As he did a pair of mares trotted past him, he gave them a smile and they whispered to each other as they pointed and frowned in pity.
Again typical, girls didn’t like Stallions who played colt games for a living it seems. Well besides the fact he was poor. His color scheme made him look sick all the time with his blood colored eyes and pale blonde mane on his puke green form, so girls wouldn’t touch him if he didn’t make the first move. Granted he had not found a complaint on a girl he did get but that wasn’t the issue.
Something in him was telling him to correct the mares. Another telling him to run with it, but as they started to walk away he changed it to just ignoring them. “If they’d just leave a sick pony in the street I don’t want anything to do with them anyway. Besides if I dated any filly now I’d just be a gold digger at some point. First thing I need to do is get the cash to support myself before I can thing about finding a hook up.”
As if by sheer destiny Draw Blank heard a familiar voice calling out to him. It was the colt from earlier and he was holding something in his mouth, a flyer. He hoofed it over to Draw and said, “I got this in the mail. It was forwarded over from my old address in Ponyville.”
Draw looked down at the flyer and read:
Dear Ponyville citizen,
I, the Great and Powerful Trixie, invite you to partake in a little event I have set up with the blessing of our princesses. The event will take up the entire town on the weekend of the 17th. Invite as many ponies from out of town as you wish but all participants in this game must be registered by the 15th.
The game you may ask? Why the greatest game The Great and Powerful Trixie has found that is sweeping the kingdom. It’s called Duel Monsters and those entering will get a discount on a starter deck and boosters at all stores in town selling the cards so that any pony can enter. Prepare for a weekend of fun so long as you have the entry fee of five bits. I know, the great and powerful Trixie is quite generous to offer such a large event at such a low price but for ones as great as I fun is more important than material gain.
However, this event is also to show just how great and powerful Trixie is, so do not expect to win in this little event when I am you opponent. If however you manage to win this event I do have a very special prize to the winner. They will receive ten percent of the combined entry fees of those who enter, and a day with the lovely Princess of the night, and Trixie’s personal friend, Luna.
For the non Trixie placement we will still reward you with five percent of the entry fees as well as your own fee given back and a free gift card of 20 bits to any store in Ponyville and Canterlot. Trixie looks forward to our day of fun and friendship.
Sincerely,
The Great and Powerful Trixie
Draw read over the letter several times to ensure he knew what he was reading. The colt under him explained as he did. “Mom said I couldn’t go but if you’re good enough to beat me then I figure you stand a good chance of winning this. I know you’ve been struggling lately so I hope this makes up for me not being able to give you a bigger anti.”
“It more than makes up for it kid,” said Draw smiling, “Thanks a lot. Ponyville right?”
The colt nodded, “But it is pretty far. You’d have to take the train to make it in time.”
“Lucky me,” said Draw, “you caught me while I still have the money for a ticket.” He started to gallop off to the train station. “Thanks again kid. I’ll win it for ya.” The child waved off the young stallion and mumbled under his breath about not being able to go but hoping he can win in spirit with his new friend entering.
“Pip,” called his mother, “get back home this instant.”
“Yes mother,” cried Pip as he galloped for her.
Elsewhere, a blue unicorn sipped her tea while organizing her cards. “Trixie is still confused,” she said to her guest across from her. “How does this help you exactly? I mean Trixie will get all the praise when she wins this and you get money to fix parts of the town sure. But how does this help you personally?”
The pony with a grey mane sipped her own tea. “For all you need to know, I had a bit of a scandal in the news paper since my last election. With one coming up soon I need everypony to love this town enough to reelect me. Is there any other reason to do such things?”
Trixie still had a bad feeling in the back of her head somewhere on this. Ever since that pink pony had a full body shudders with some ear flops and tried to warn everyone something was going to happen in fact. But then again what were the chances anything would go wrong at a simple card tournament?
“And besides,” she thought to herself, “I was able to convince Twilight Sparkle to enter. I may have failed a few times before, but this time the plan is so simple it has to work.” She had a bad flash of the last plan that went wrong somehow ending with them dating for a month before she came to her senses after the plan backfired. In retrospect she didn’t see how it was going to work in the first place. She shook her head to get rid of it and regained her confidence.
The Mayor continued to sip her tea, amused by Trixie’s obvious plotting in her head. The poor girl had no idea what this event’s purpose was. Then again so long as they both got their ends of the deal, Trixie didn’t have to know about their third silent partner in this. Ignorance is bliss after all.
I'm interested, i truly am, seeing as how i am a fan of the game myself, i wish to see how this expands, so do hurry with the next chapter please?
BTW, you misspelled "flier" which is poster advertisement.
I'm glad you decided to stick with TCG/OCG cards for this series. Too many series use nothing but made up cards and it just makes everything confusing as all hell. Anyways, the grammar is good, the writing for the dueling is quite legible for being in dialogue format, and I like seeing you using original characters instead pure canon characters. I'm behind you on this story 100%! Yu-Gi-Oh! fan for life!
955082 This isn't the kind of stuff that should be rushed. I have my own Yu-Gi-Oh! fanfic(s) on this site and even with the love and care I put into writing them, I'm still prone to making mistakes, whether it be errors in grammar or miscalculations or illegal maneuvers in the duels. MasteroFlag, write at the pace you wish. I'd rather have slow, exceptional writing than quick sloppy messes.
955156 i didn't mean as in to make it sloppy, its just my general eagerness to read the rest of the story, and i think i might check yours out to see how it is...
955200 Just be careful. I've had a lot of people dislike my story for no discernable reason (as the comments section can prove). All I ask is that you view it with an open mind. If you don't like it, please don't hesitate to tell me why you don't like it. There's no worse feeling for me than seeing someone dislike a story of mine without giving a reason why.
955219 im open minded to every thing, so tno worries, and ill also be sure to tell you if something is needed to be changed
Nice set up I can't wait to see where this goes.
Also I wonder just WHO is going to be in this tournament besides the mane six and Trixie.
You didn't watch the original, but you watched the spin offs?
955408 Someone needs a link to Dailymotion.
955408 It's cause I've seen the original so much along with LK's abridged series and my manga collection so much that when I decided to sit to watch that I skipped all filler and anything LK covered already. Meaning aside from the Battle City Finals I had little to watch in general so I didn't count that in this.
Plus I did say it was all summer long. we still have 2 months, and I still have 2 more spin offs since I'm still at Yubel and plan to finish after instead of looking up the subbed season 4 since I only plan to watch Zexel subbed.:
955200
I think mine after the next chapter will take longer than usual since this is my 5th story and all of them are still ongoing.
955643 It's all good, no worries, I can wait
Interesting.
Tracking
955586 why? is Hulu not available where you are cause I'm using that so it can auto play all day.
955979 No, it's just that Hulu doesn't have the Japanese episodes, which are the ones I primarily watch.
Generally well-written and made sense...and yes good choice to use "Real" cards and not ones you made up.
It does lead to a question though. Will your children's-card-game-playing hero stick to the same basic deck the whole time, or will he switch between different ones depending on his/your mood or whatever makes a good story?
I ask because one of the traits of Yu-Gi-Oh the anime is how much you could tell about the hero based on the cards they played. As an example--from GX just so I know we're on the same page--Jaden's Elemental Heros weren't always the best choice in any situation (and IRL the cards tended to SUCK) but story-wise they told you everything you needed to know about him. Jaden saw himself as a hero, a plain vanilla power rangers sort of hero who through a combination of his friends and various gadgets could eventually defeat every obstacle. His friend (whose name escapes me) with the "-roid" cards saw himself as goofy and generally inferior to his no-nonsense brother, but they both used Machines and so the family connection was still there.
Therefore. Is your protagonist the sort to always use big stompy dinosaurs to beat little kids (albeit ones that at least sort of know what they're doing) and take their lunch money? And if not, what sort of deck does describe him?
955998 He's yet to use his real deck since his personal one is very different, but since here he is forced to survive I figured the Dino deck would work here.
I mention his has other decks and other card games for a reason. the Tournament will have Yugioh cards but expect a little surprise when he gets into his 2nd or 3rd game after arriving in Ponyville. Albeit a guessable one now that I've said it. I just didn't want to start him off with his real deck since I think the warrior deck thing is a tad played out with Yusei and Jaden sporting it and Yuma seems to have a warrior as his main card.
956236
Ah, okay then...carry on.
955621
Ah, sorry, I thought you just skipped the original. As for you fic...
cdn.styleforum.net/3/31/31e871cd_Go_On.jpeg
Hm, this has peaked my interest for sure. I hate Yu-Gi-Oh, but I used to watch my brother play it, so I remember how big it was (and of course how, in the show, they took ten minutes just to chose a card). This is a really cool idea, and Luna is best princess anyway, so I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes!
I'm so favouring this.
Interesting, I'll have to keep an eye on it.
This is relevant to my interest, keep up the good work.
Wanna play on Dueling Network? dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/misc_Colgate_bedroomeyes.png
I just have one thing to say to u. IT'S TIME TO DUEL