日本語の取材へ

After bouncing around the Pro Tour without much success, Ichiro Shimura has finally made his presence felt, winning Grand Prix Sendai. Shimura, a twenty-one year old university student, took his lumps at three Pro Tours and focused on improving his game. Many who know Shimura expected him to have a breakthrough tournament, and it happened this weekend. Shimura admitted that much of his success could be attributed to the notorious Loxodon Warhammer, which was in his sealed deck yesterday, as well as his first draft deck and Top 8 deck today. In the final draft of the weekend, Shimura even got a Grab the Reins to go with the powerful piece of hardware.

At the final table, Shimura had to get through veteran player Masahiko Morita. As a part of the highly successful PS2 team with Katsuhiro Mori and Masashiro Kuroda, Morita has been an accomplished player in team formats. As far as individual achievements go, he had been to the finals of an individual Grand Prix three times prior to today without taking home the championship trophy, and this time he'll have to settle for second place once more. If the past is any indication though, it's only a matter of time until Morita clears the hurdle.

The lone foreigner in the Top 8 was Antoine Ruel. For more than a month, Antoine has been on a whirlwind tour of the world along with his brother Olivier and Sam Gomersall. He started with Grand Prix Madrid, came to Japan for Pro Tour Kobe, went to Grand Prix Hong Kong, returned to Japan for this event, and will take a brief rest at home before attending Grand Prix Birmingham next week. This was Ruel's third Grand Prix in the Mirrodin/Darksteel booster draft format, and he's mastered the format with a few bumps in the road. At Madrid, he needed a win in his last two matches to make Top 8, but couldn't pull it off. In Hong Kong he needed to win in the last round, but missed Top 8 once more. This weekend, the third time was a charm. He played his way to the Semifinals, before losing to Morita. If he's disappointed with not winning a Grand Prix today, he'll have yet another chance next weekend.

Japan has been producing plenty of new, talented players over the last few years. If Ichiro Shimura's growing reputation and performance this weekend are any indication, we shouldn't be surprised to see him achieving Pro Tour success in the near future.