North American National Champion
Brandon Smith has won the last match for the world championship finals at the Tokyo Dome Hotel, and been crowned World Champion, making him the first international champion for
Cardfight!! Vanguard and the first American to take the title. The final rounds between his Spectral Duke Dragon deck and Asian Champion Henry Suharto's Pellinore deck were conducted in a best of three format, with fifty minutes allotted for the total time of all three matches rather than the standard twenty. Smith lost the first round despite having a strong opening, as he lost advantage due to his early limit break, and from there Suharto was able to maintain a powerful lead despite Smith's attempts to narrow the difference in cards and damage. In the second round Smith maintained total control of the game throughout, bringing out the skills of the entire Vortimer series and making several spectacular guards early in the game that allowed him to stay at two damage while Suharto was struggling with four and five. This helped Smith to not need to guard later on, and his limit break ultimately sealed the match.
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| Runner-Up, Henry Suharto. To his right is the third-place finalist Christopher Fernau, and off-screen Christopher Sok in fourth. |
In the third round Suharto was able to superior ride Pellinore from grade 2 and quickly snowball his advantage, taking control of the round, but despite this was forced to make a judgment call while navigating the late game that cost him the match. Having chosen to only guard with 5000 shield versus Spectral Duke Dragon, a single critical trigger decided the third and final of the matches. While the championship was a difficult and uphill battle, these three fights have now become some of the most important matches in the history of
Cardfight.
Over 62,000 viewers tuned into the fight, with Bushiroad's staff encouraging overseas fans to post comments in English during the NicoNico Douga livestream of the finals.
Previously this morning, Eboshida Hiromi of Kanazawa took the FC2012 junior class championship title with his Dragonic Overlord The End deck. Despite the deck having been in use since before the preceding FR2012 event, this is the first time that it has ever taken a championship title. The identity of the senior class champion is currently unclear, but Tanaka Shouta's Tsukuyomi deck placed fourth in the senior lineup.
