DJ Cdisk Blog... Get It, Got It, Goodbye :(

[DJ Cdisk]

Hey guys this will be my final installment of DJ CDisk’s Blog. It saddens me that I probably played my final yugioh games this weekend but had fun doing so, I hope you guys continue to get better and prove to the mainland that the best duelist comes from Hawaii! Today, I’m going to take a look back at my past and give you guys a little background of my 16 years of gaming (ha I’ve been gaming longer than you’ve been born Brandon Kinard!!!) and will give some elderly advice that may help you make the most out of your own gaming experience.

Getting Started
Like most of you guys, I started playing card games back in 7th grade at Highlands Intermediate, and like most of you I started playing because my friends started playing as well. They only had about 5-6 cards games at the time and the game that we started with was… Magic the Gathering. The fact that these “baseball cards” had abilities and powers that can be used in strategic way to gain victory for you and your team was amazing to me. Instantly, I was hooked on Magic. We played everyday during lunchtime (we would eat during recess) so we could play 4 vs. 4 games that would last the entire lunch period (and sometimes not), with Epic play after Epic play making us go ohh and aww! I didn’t have a lot of money but Magic had these $1 packs called Homelands (the BEST MAGIC SET EVER!!!) where I added cards to my deck hoping to win the lunch wars. I didn’t know every single rule (heck we didn’t even tap lands) but had a great time every game we played.

Getting Competitive
As the school year pressed on more and more players started joining our group, we started having Tournaments in school. Players who did have more money than me had better cards and stronger decks that would crush mine (“Wait, so this land counts as a Forest and a Mountain?”). They kept on beating me and beating me and even my best cards (Eron the Restless…lol) couldn’t stand against theirs. They would tell me “you playing your cards wrong and you gotta tap your lands, cause you might tap out” and they helped me learn more rulings as they kept coming. So I started reading Articles in Scrye and Inquest Magazines to learn more strategies, (combos), and deck ideas that they would help make my deck better (there was no internet back then so we had to read magazines to get any information) and with perseverance, and trading cards with people I had managed to make a pretty good deck and in time, started beating them and it felt good. Getting beat constantly made me want to play better and thus made me even more competitive. With patience, studying, and practice I became a better player.

Getting Organized
When I entered high school, Many of my friends stopped playing Magic (mainly due to the fact that Highlands Banned Magic Cards my 8th grade year), however I still wanted to play Magic, so I started hanging out with upperclassmen who played better and even played “Sanctioned Tournaments”. They started to encourage me go to these and I remember waking up at 6:30 in the morning to take the bus from my house to Ward Warehouse to play my very first state-wide Tournament, I did not do well at this event. Jumping from casual home games to organized play is a hard transition. While many people were friendly in these events, if you made a mistake they pounce at you. It wasn’t my cup of tea at that time and events were so big to me that I felt like a fish out of water. And with this being the only venue of organized play at the time I grew less and less fond of the Game and only played at school and at hobby store tables.

Getting Dangerous
As high school went on I came more and more obsessed with the game and it came to a point where I went down a wrong path. Since I couldn’t afford to get the best cards in the game, I started to steal from players and stores. Trying to make a buck any way I can so that I could buy more cards. I would even steal at a store and then sell it to them to make money and did so for quite some time. Then one evening at Wal-Mart nonetheless, I stole a few packs of Magic cards. A man grabbed me as I walked out the door telling me to show him what I stole. My Uncle started arguing and yelling with the security guard saying “he’s a good kid, He wouldn’t steal anything!”, but with a frighten look on my face I exposed the stolen packs and he proceeded to take be to the backroom. Now, I thought I would get picked up by your parents and probably get banned from the store. But he wanted to make an example out of me and called the Police to pick me up and have my parents pick me up at the Police station. I had to walk the entire Wal-Mart with handcuffs to the front entrance of the store with everyone staring. When my parents picked me up, my Dad was furious! Tossing every card I owned into the garbage telling me to never play cards again. It was the most disappointing moment and I knew that I would never steal again. DON’T STEAL GUYS…. There will be consequences believe me….

Getting Mature
After that, I stopped playing Magic and focused on Graduating High School (Class of 2000 son!), I started working and made some money and decided I wanted to start playing again (doing it the right way). I was still afraid of Magic’s Orgainzed play and was even more hesitant because I haven’t played in years. So started browsing the web and discovered a handful of players who played Star Wars, I met up with them a group of no more than 12 players who where competitive but very friendly and helpful to a new person to the community. What really made me play the game though was the organizer of the Tournaments, his mane was Mike Parker (why are all the organizers named Mike :) ) and he made tournaments fun, skilled, and worthwhile. He would even add prizes from his own collection to spice things up. I remembered he gave me high valued cards for free just to make my deck better; he didn’t even want to trade me the cards. I told him I would feel better if I gave him something in return, he said as long as you support our group it was payment enough. That made me come to everything he was organizing, it could have been in Haleiwa and I still would have gone. I supported the game because Mike was such a great guy that I wanted to help him grow the community, we got to as much as 30 players strong and if he hadn’t left Hawaii, I’d probably still be supporting his group to this day.

Getting a Second Crack at Organized Play
When Mike left Hawaii, I tried my best to keep my community alive; we started playing Lord of the Rings TCG and I became the organizer, I tried my best hosting Tournaments at places like Other Realms and Last Sanctuary, but the game faded and I had nothing to play. Then my cousin came into my room with a Starter Deck Box named Kaiba. He told me he wanted to learn and showed me the instructions. I told him this game is too easy. There’s no skill is involved. This Game is Wack! He still wanted to play so I bought a starter deck and proceeded to play. After him beating me 5 times in a row, began getting angry and I wanted to get better. I heard they had Tournaments in Mililani, so we went. There were 125 to 150 players! 2 rounds of round 1 (veterans remember that). I think I played like 10 Tournaments and never got out of the first round. Then with patience, studying, and practice I started winning games. And from its infant stages I have played Yugioh Tournaments Big and small. I was now prepared going through the rigors of organized play again and entered big events like Regionals and SJC and did my best to improve my game.

Getting more involved
With so much knowledge of the game, I wanted to see if I could get more involved in helping this community to continue to grow. I wanted to use my talents and my grasp of the game to help people like myself in the past who are scared from going from the dinner table to the feature table. I started writing articles about gameplay and events, giving my insight in other player’s decks, and boosting up and encouraging the great upcoming players of Yugioh. Players like Jordan Gungap (the Blackwing King), Rowen Ching (GB Arcee), and Matt Isosaki (DJ Twilight) relatively new to the community but still among of the top players here in Hawaii; competing against the vets like Albert Lee, Nolan Takahashi, and Chris Ventura who have been on the top tables time after time. Even though I wasn’t getting paid to do so, I still tried my best to help out the Yugioh community by playing and supporting as many events I could attend.

Finally as I close remember this

To the new players: Be Patient, study the game, and Practice, Practice, Practice

To the Up comers: Continue to improve your game and support the game to the fullest. Be competitive but also be respectable and responsible.

To the Vets: Help and support the community as best as you see fit. Help newcomers and encourage them rather than look down at them cause their newbs. Be a cog to keep the community running smoothly and not a tool that will hurt it.

To the organizers: All I can say is keep up the good work. Hawaii has the BEST ORGANIZERS and I know if your support the players, the players will support you.

Thanks for your well wishes and farewells, I will miss interacting with you guys on a regular basis and wish you all the best. Keep the community strong and be kind to each other.

Oh and here‘s my final insight to strike up a conversation. Tragoedia is 100 times better than Gorz. Tragoedia wins games as Gorz just helps you not to lose. Play Tragoedia don’t play Gorz anymore!!!

Keep playing, trading, and most importantly HAVE FUN!!! IT’S A GAME IN THE END!

Nick
AKA DJ CDisk

YES I'M HOLDING TRAGOEDIA FTW!!!

[Kenny (Ichimaru Gin)]

saddly i didnt know you :( and after reading your life adveture of card gamming you seem like a fun person. I do enjoy your blogs you always put up so thanks for that, saddly unlike you were evry one knows you not many people know me and i have been coming to da planet for a long time (first time coming here was CRV sneak peak) been coming here ever since. I do live up in the mainland now so i come for a few months every year.

[Travis Kumano]

I know we will all miss you Nick, and now I have one less person I enjoy playing against lol. I wish you the best and who knows, maybe one day you'll come back out of no where lol.

[Mario Talub]

thanks nick for all the blogs and all the duels we all had fun in and we all will miss you but i didnt know you that well but thanks for all the fun
hope you have a great time and come back soon

[Matty the Squid]

This was an incredible read. I love the opening section talking about the old days. I think it's hard for the younger generation to imagine a time when information was scarce. I know sometimes I've felt like an old fogey ranting about the past...

"You darn kids don't know how good you have it! Back in MY day, we didn't have no fancy-shmancy interwebs! We'd have to walk for MILES to the local comic shop, in the BLAZING Hawaii sun, to get the latest issue of our favorite gaming magazine. Then, like some ancient, prized tome, we'd crack it open and devour the information inside. We'd get a handful of articles, maybe as many as ten if we were LUCKY, and that was IT! For the ENTIRE MONTH! And we were THANKFUL!"

I'm glad that you wrote about your darker days, too. I think it's very important to not only pass on lessons we learned from doing things right, but also lessons we learned from doing things wrong (that's sort of the same reason I keep telling people not to screw around with their school work).

I truly hope people take your parting words of wisdom to heart.

Good luck.

[Flying Hawaiian]

Nick I will miss playing you and I am sure the community that you help build will miss you also. Yugi and Kaiba starter decks, thats how I got hooked playing the game with my cousin too!!! Good luck and god bless you in all your endevors.

[Kenneth "Mr. Regionals" Amor]

Nick come back to the scene after the marriage life maybe one day u will have kids and u will teach them card games who knows yugioh might still be around