A recent no-banlist tournament in Salt Lake City had people turning heads — and pillows — after a grueling finals match between two Tearlament players that lasted a whole 11 hours. The tournament was live-streamed on YouTube, but has no available VODs of the match due to the sheer file size of the video.
For those unaware, no-banlist tournaments allow all cards ever printed in Yu-Gi-Oh!, even if they are incredibly powerful or problematic. Players can freely use Pot of Greed, Painful Choice or even Branded Expulsion, which leads to unexpected and exciting decks, like “Exodia OTK again” or “top meta deck but with Graceful Charity”.
According to participants and viewers, the tournament began without any incidents (cheating scandal excluded) and continued for several rounds until the last two players, both Ishizu Tearlament pilots, sat down for the final match. Allegedly, one well-known player in the no-banlist tournament community, began berating his opponent for their choice of shirt, playmat and deck. It continued until the judge reminded both players to start playing, as they had limited time to play due one of the player’s visa expiring at 9AM of the next day.
Stream viewers claim that with dozens of cards in the chain link after each successful Ishizu mill, both player spent hours meticulously resolving each effect to avoid breaking any rules or missing any triggers, only stopping to insult one another’s extended family tree. After several hours, the game state became so convoluted that viewership dropped to record lows and other players, the organizer, head judge, and the cleaning staff all left without waiting for the result. The floor judge eventually gave up too, finding a cozy spot on the concrete and helping themselves to a nice nap of four hours. The game only ended at exactly 9AM, when several men emerged and grabbed one of the players. As the player was still holding his cards while being taken into a van, the disturbed floor judge decided against ruling a forfeit and declared the entire grueling affair as a draw.
Magic the Gathering players in the vicinity were reportedly discussing the innovative angle shoot called “stalling the game for hours to call the ICE on your opponent”.
