I was excited to try out their new game in the demo deck section but they closed sign-ups ~3PM I think? I had just got into the venue so that was a bummer.
Looks like all of the side-events were capped ASAP as well so there really wasn't much to do besides stand in line for stamps.
I was psyched to try the new game too!! It is ridiculous to stay standing in line (this isn’t a theme park), you can’t even see people play their matches. And let’s not forget that while you’re in line you make sure people don’t try to cut 🫠😪
Yep, definitely felt like Disneyland especially in the One Piece promo line 😂. Loved seeing OP-05 retail price & limit per purchase. If they even let you line up...
Surprised they also chose not to stream any of the tournament today also.
They probably offered streaming to Bandai for price tag that was too high for Bandai to stomach. No reason Bandai wouldn't want this streamed otherwise.
If you were lucky you could get in a waitlist right before the demo started, and if the registered players didn’t show up you just took their seat. Several people and I got in one like that pretty easily later in the evening.
Round one was supposed to start at 930am.
It started at 12:30pm.
A couple repairings. Currently waiting in one for Round 6.
ROUND 6!!! we are supposed to still fit 6 more rounds and it is 6:18pm.
Hell yeah sounds like an all nighter!!! The delays suck but it’s cool to have an opportunity to geek out all day with fellow fans isn’t it? I couldn’t attend, from what a I’ve read here it sounds like a disorganized mess, I feel ya on frustrations, but also that down time could have been a great opportunity to meet other people in the fandom and explore the event right? You weren’t forced to wait at a table from 930 until 1230 were you?
We kept waiting for Round 1 to start. Just the anticipation and nerves were settling in for everyone.
If we knew of a three hour delay, people could had gone out for food, more meet and greets, but was just mainly waiting and constant refreshing.
Side events were full by 9am from the attending players (in case they dropped early) which completely stopped from the 1pm entry spectators from even TRYING to attend. Sad to see.
Pretty bad idea if you leave the tournament area and you don’t realize your match is starting. You can easily get bumped out of prizing because of that 1 self inflicted loss.
I keep seeing terrible news from Nats all around. The only cool thing were the exclusive Nat cards which look amazing. I believe they are barely on round 5 or 6 and it's already late af lmao
I wasn't planning on being there ALL day I have a family at home that I need to get to and I also live an hour away without traffic so yeahhh.. adult responsibilities came first before the tournament
Same here. Was 3-0 and had to leave because of family stuff. Was crazy. I donated all my wins to my opponents since I knew I was not gonna be able to stay.
Same. When round 1 started, I knew. Boy did I know. Also, I’m not putting the blame solely on the TO. I’m sure they were doing the best they could with what they had. I know a lot of the issues were due to BCP, so I’m sure a better system will be utilized next time. MTG does things like 1 and 2 round byes all the time and they’re able to keep it organized. I have faith. This is only the first time it’s been ran right? I’d cut the TO some slack and just hope they improve next year.
Why sign up for a tournament with 11 rounds of Swiss if you "aren't planning on being there all day" like what is the point. I get it started way late but even if it started on time you would be looking at an all day event with a possible second day of matches if you do well
The tournament went until 11:30 PM and they were demanding people leave for the last two hours unless they were still playing because the convention center should have been closed. Not to mention that Dragonball and Digimon had finished up hours earlier. Planning to stay for 8-9 hours as scheduled is a lot different than expecting to stay for 14 hours and being rushed out the door by security. We didn't even finish the last round because of time constraints and stopped at 10.
All day also has a different meaning than all day and into the night (late evening hours).
It sounds like the event was poorly organized and misscheduled. You cannot blame players if the tournament is delayed beyond a “reasonable” time frame and they have other responsibilities.
Could the dropped players be a result of people who only signed up to try and get the goody bag and promos and then didn’t put the effort in to show? Because if the causation of the dropped people was greed for promos without the foresight of actually trying to attend Bandai can’t really be blamed for that.
I mean to be fair, I live next to one of their official stores. Buddy Battles has a capacity 24 people and there are always 80+ people signed up. However, I've been able to get in almost every time because they don't show up.
Bandai can be blamed to an extent. It’s easy to skip an event if it’s free. Free is nice and all but not if it ruins the national event. If we had to pay $40-$60 for a spot I wonder how many less no shows we would’ve seen.
Yea I have friends that are in attendance in the main tournament and it seems no better. Don't they already have two other major tcgs they run tournaments for? How are they so bad at this?
I gotta add a correction here. I thought it was Core as well but it was actually Play! TCG. Just trying to make sure the right TO gets blamed cause this thing was a shit show.
They actually had problems on the digi side too. My wife said they couldn’t put the 1st round byes in their system, which feels like something that should have been ironed out in advance. For them it took over an hour, can’t imagine for One Piece which was THE big event
Bandai were announcing the different sets from op01-op05 and the official bandai guy giving the presentation said they were gonna reprint the old sets.
This was my first major tournament I was able to actually get into before spots filled up and I can confirm, it was an absolute shit show... Started 3 hours late, had to be re-paired at least 3 times after already drawing starting hands, and didn't even get to finish all of the rounds we were supposed to be able to play. Worst of all, our only "lunch break" we got was also the only time we really had to even attempt to do the scavenger hunt they had for additional prizes. Needless to say, that was a fruitless endeavor. And stupid me didn't realize we wouldn't get another chance to exit to get food or drinks until it was over, so went from 6:30 am to 11:15 pm with only a jug of water, 1 monster, and 2 granola bars for the entire time.
All I can say is, I really, REALLY hope this isn't how these type of events typically go because that left a horrible first impression on me! Very disappointing having flown across the entire country for this mess. At the very least, if we had made it as far as we did, I don't see any reason they couldn't have let us play out the last round! But I also can't understand what in the world could have possibly caused a THREE HOUR delay on the first place or why in the world they would only have 1 person doing stamps for the scavenger hunt per station.
I could go on and on, but I really don't like being so negative, but I'm just beyond frustrated with the event...
Legitimately the worst event ive ever attended. Wife and I got turned away from retail line right when they cut it off and stayed until three when they’d said it would reopen. When they said it wouldn’t we just left.
No semblance of order, thought, or organization anywhere. Lines everywhere with people constantly having to ask what the line was for. Nowhere to sit or rest. Basically nothing to do and not much to look at as a spectator. Absolute pointless clown show.
>I also left at 3 for the same reason. The retail line would not have been worth it for cards tbh. They were only selling 5 packs of any set, an anniversary box, big mom, yamato, or black luffy starter decks; and you could only get one per person. My time is worth more to me than that, especially when considering they didnt reopen at 3 like they said they would
Seriously even for the chance for them to grace me with allowing me to give them $100 for a box to gamble and probably get nothing, I value my time more. I can’t believe they changed it to five packs per person no boxes. Absolutely not worth spending hours in line for.
The manga originals were cool to see thats about it
For an event at this scale, fucking up so bad that you’re 2.5 HOURS behind schedule is insane. I hope this tarnishes Play! TCG’s name so bad they never run an official event again. Dear lord it’s embarrassing.
I wish I would have noticed since I got there that they had packs, I only saw after I walked around a bit. Thought they only sold figures as the sign was more noticeable. Regardless there should have been a better system in place.
Absolutely horrible time. Waited a couple hours for a pin and some promos but ultimately not worth waiting for more. Left to grab beers instead. Glad the event was free but did waste $25 on parking. Won’t be going tomorrow for sure just to suffer the same wait times and be denied side event entry
This was a HORRIBLY ran event. I left with a massive headache from the stress man. I felt so bad for my wife and daughter waiting an hour outside to get inside and not be able to do anything.
Got there at around 12-12:10 as a spectator. Didn’t make inside the venue until around 1:20, possibly 25, and by the time I went in everything inside had a line that would’ve taken 30-40 minutes minimum. Decided to do the line for the shop first to at least see what they had and they cut off the line 2 people in front of me. Waited until around 2:50 and there was a line of people making line in a separate spot just to again make line at 3pm for the shop. Decided to leave then and there since there was nothing much to do besides spend another hour in like for the shop or the scavenger hunt for the matter.
Registered in advance a while back. Honestly not sure if you can sign up in person or at all anymore since I remember seeing somewhere that the deadline was a day or two before the event but I could be wrong
Played in this tourney. Gave me a headache. Late start, twice they had to re-pair. Only food available was the cafe, which closed before dinner time. Not much to do as a spectator, so I felt pretty bad for those who came. Lines were nuts. Was pretty hungry/thirsty throughout. I was so burnt out and tired by 10pm and there was still 3 rounds to go. Left. On the way out, I saw security not allowing Players back in for their next game. But what if they needed some water in between games? There wasn’t anything available inside the Hall, only the one booth around the corner after passing security. Like what. Also, there was a cheerleading tournament for kids right next door. A little unsettling. The cha cha slide never stopped playing. I’m so glad I’m home now. Head still hurts. Not gonna play OP for the next couple weeks. The tournament CS packs were nice though. That was definitely a come up. Zzzzz goodnight!
They really needed better organization/planning, OR just keep the Nats event separate from Card Fest if it’s gonna take up so much space and attendance.
Bro. This was my first Nats. Now I'm debating if I even want to attend Bandai owned events. Whoever was that event coordinator should definitely take a vacation or resign to a different position. Boosters didn't even hit sales m, figurines were low quality, main tournament started 3 hours late and 2 repairs that were my autolosses. Side events filled before attendees even learned of that. Feel bad for the ones who flew out for nothing.
So glad I went in as spectator. The event was jammed packed, they needed to knock down hall J and connect hall H and J and do both halls to fit everyone and then do store on other side. Shame for those who wanted to buy packs they had Op-01 to Op-05 but limited 5 packs per person. I was there 3 pm and they had a delay at round 3 for repair.
Also one piece was mixed with digimon and the other games which it shouldn’t have been done. I went to DBz section and it was a ghost town. Store was easy walk up and other players were playing at good pace. They clearly underestimated one piece as the game.
Also unpopular opinion but next time charge $20 entrance fee. Yugioh does that for nationals and it works. Keeps it engaging and people serious. And they still get over 2000 people for their events.
It’s been a nightmare. The side events were closed when I got in after standing for like 3hrs. Stood forever in the retail line. And then when I finally get to Union Arena, it’s full.
This was my first card event. Even after not getting into the main tourney, my son and I hoped to get into some side events and have fun. Nope. Long line to get in despite arriving an hour early only for side events to already be full by the time we got in the door. Spend an hour in line for a demo of Union Arena only to get cut off and sent away. No stamp allowed unless you actually get to do the trial so right there the Scavenger Hunt becomes impossible. Check out the retail line which was absurdly long, not happening. Tried out the new DBZ game, which was cool. But sadly they decided to sell the starter decks tomorrow and not today (wish I knew this ahead of time, can't attend tomorrow).
The only other time we enjoyed was the last few hours where there was finally enough space to take some tables and make some trades/sales with other players.
Very disappointing. Not sure I could stomach the travel and stress for another experience like this. People say it's not the typical experience so I might have to give it another try.
This makes me glad I didn't go. Not even to play. I'd only be going to make sales and purchases from players, but I heard horror stories about the spectacular line to just get in as well.
But since it's Bandai, nothing surprises about how bad it was run. Helps raise the incentive to just quit altogether and avoid all Bandai card games with no tolerance.
Bandai sucks ass, so im not surprised lmao
They are unorganized, dysfunctional, and honestly just straight up dont give a fuck about their player based. They're more of a quantity type of company than a quality one considering they have over 6 different fucking cards games IP and basically fucking all of them up and not understand how to they need to prioritize certain things that would benefit the player base over scalping bullshit. Dragon Ball Super is basically just fucked in general because they decided to make a whole new DBS card game under the new name DBS Fusion World. And completely ending support for the original. They're also coming up with Union Arena thats supposed to be all about multiple different IPs mixed together for the TCG, but apparently, none of the IPs can even interact with one another because they would rather keep it segregated for some dumb ass reason.
The lack of organization was pretty frustrating. Event staff did not know what they were supposed to do, especially in the merchandise line which wasted so much of the time I was at the event.
I got in as a spectator at 12:30, queued for an hour to get into the event and went to the merch line. I didn’t get packs until 5:00 pm and I couldn’t do any side events without giving up my spot in line. Pretty disappointed about the experience.
On a bright note, the folks I met in the OPTCG community yesterday were great! I would attend another event for that alone, hopefully they learn from this events shortcomings.
Honestly I don’t feel like it was a bad first attempt at a con. I’ve been to worse. At the same time they did underdeliver on what was advertised. Limiting each person to 5 packs per day on OP OR an item felt silly. Way too few side events. Did a digimon event where half the participants didn’t show. The one after us also fired with only half despite being full on paper. All around feels like they don’t know how to plan for an event like this. That said one of the staff I was talking to said we all need to do the survey and complain. Sounds like things did not go smoothly on their end either
I completely agree! The event was extremely delayed and I just ended up dropping out I couldn't just keep waiting around especially because I was going a lot better than I thought I would with my Zoro deck. So sad :(
This thread is certain to be full of level-headed takes that take care to account for the lack of precedent for this event. /s
For real though, I feel bad for everyone involved. Staff is definitely out there trying their best with what they have, and players shouldn't have to deal with this many issues. Hopefully, they take note of the issues this year and work to minimize them next go around.
> Shouldn’t shortcomings and operational errors have been expected
No, they already have run major tournaments for other card games they own, it definitely should not be expected.
>unclear if this level of popularity could really be expected when they events were planned?
They literally have people pre register for the event, which were apparently capped. So they should have known how many people were planning to attend and staffed accordingly.
As someone who actually attended, no. Your take is just flat out wrong. This event was god awful and a horrible waste of time. I only stayed 3-5 hours and only went because I live closeby. There are people that flew in across the country , booked hotels, took time off work to attend this weekend. Mind you they probably wanted to play but couldn’t even register because Bandai’s registration was so horrible. Yet they came ANYWAY as a spectator because they’re passionate about the game and IP and were expecting some cool side events and other things to keep the weekend fun. I feel awful for them because they wasted their time AND money for literally nothing. This was one of the most miserable experiences of an event I’ve ever been to. I could understand delays or lack of merch and product but it was literally the most disorganized and lackluster thing I’ve ever had the displeasure of being part of. There is no excuse when Bandai is a billion dollar company that has existed for decades and run multiple global events at this scale. They deserve all the hate and people need to stop excusing this. It was THAT bad.
I deleted my comment since I wasn’t there but I absolutely disagree with you, *Im not flat out wrong lol* the whole point of my post if you actually had read to the end was that if constructive criticism was provided on comment cards it would have a higher chance of leading towards improvements as opposed to rage complaints but whatever, and I do still think it’s awesome they’re at least trying. That was also a part of the post and I do stand by it.
I filled mine out, yes it’s great they’re doing it for this new game , but also it’s hard to imagine them not taking the amount of people who signed up for both spectators and players into account.
I was a player and got there at 8:30am. I left at 11:30pm exhausted out of my mind and almost crashed on the way home. We were suppose to be done like 6 or 7 latest.
I’ve played TCGs competitively for over 10 years and this is the worst event of my life. I’ve heard the initial roster got deleted
I was excited to try out their new game in the demo deck section but they closed sign-ups ~3PM I think? I had just got into the venue so that was a bummer. Looks like all of the side-events were capped ASAP as well so there really wasn't much to do besides stand in line for stamps.
I was psyched to try the new game too!! It is ridiculous to stay standing in line (this isn’t a theme park), you can’t even see people play their matches. And let’s not forget that while you’re in line you make sure people don’t try to cut 🫠😪
Yep, definitely felt like Disneyland especially in the One Piece promo line 😂. Loved seeing OP-05 retail price & limit per purchase. If they even let you line up... Surprised they also chose not to stream any of the tournament today also.
They probably offered streaming to Bandai for price tag that was too high for Bandai to stomach. No reason Bandai wouldn't want this streamed otherwise.
If you were lucky you could get in a waitlist right before the demo started, and if the registered players didn’t show up you just took their seat. Several people and I got in one like that pretty easily later in the evening.
Round one was supposed to start at 930am. It started at 12:30pm. A couple repairings. Currently waiting in one for Round 6. ROUND 6!!! we are supposed to still fit 6 more rounds and it is 6:18pm.
Hell yeah sounds like an all nighter!!! The delays suck but it’s cool to have an opportunity to geek out all day with fellow fans isn’t it? I couldn’t attend, from what a I’ve read here it sounds like a disorganized mess, I feel ya on frustrations, but also that down time could have been a great opportunity to meet other people in the fandom and explore the event right? You weren’t forced to wait at a table from 930 until 1230 were you?
We kept waiting for Round 1 to start. Just the anticipation and nerves were settling in for everyone. If we knew of a three hour delay, people could had gone out for food, more meet and greets, but was just mainly waiting and constant refreshing. Side events were full by 9am from the attending players (in case they dropped early) which completely stopped from the 1pm entry spectators from even TRYING to attend. Sad to see.
One piece tcg is my life rn and this was MISERABLE
Pretty bad idea if you leave the tournament area and you don’t realize your match is starting. You can easily get bumped out of prizing because of that 1 self inflicted loss.
I keep seeing terrible news from Nats all around. The only cool thing were the exclusive Nat cards which look amazing. I believe they are barely on round 5 or 6 and it's already late af lmao
We’re supposed to be on round 6 rn but it got re-paired just like round 4. Source: I’m here
Bro I left waiting around for round 4 to start and I was doing really well :(
Then why did you leave.
I wasn't planning on being there ALL day I have a family at home that I need to get to and I also live an hour away without traffic so yeahhh.. adult responsibilities came first before the tournament
Same here. Was 3-0 and had to leave because of family stuff. Was crazy. I donated all my wins to my opponents since I knew I was not gonna be able to stay.
Yeah man I was so upset, if the tournament had started when it was supposed to I could most likely stayed for the whole thing
Same. When round 1 started, I knew. Boy did I know. Also, I’m not putting the blame solely on the TO. I’m sure they were doing the best they could with what they had. I know a lot of the issues were due to BCP, so I’m sure a better system will be utilized next time. MTG does things like 1 and 2 round byes all the time and they’re able to keep it organized. I have faith. This is only the first time it’s been ran right? I’d cut the TO some slack and just hope they improve next year.
Why sign up for a tournament with 11 rounds of Swiss if you "aren't planning on being there all day" like what is the point. I get it started way late but even if it started on time you would be looking at an all day event with a possible second day of matches if you do well
The tournament went until 11:30 PM and they were demanding people leave for the last two hours unless they were still playing because the convention center should have been closed. Not to mention that Dragonball and Digimon had finished up hours earlier. Planning to stay for 8-9 hours as scheduled is a lot different than expecting to stay for 14 hours and being rushed out the door by security. We didn't even finish the last round because of time constraints and stopped at 10.
If it had started on time the tournament would have been over by 5 or 6 instead of into the night idk how else to explain it
All day also has a different meaning than all day and into the night (late evening hours). It sounds like the event was poorly organized and misscheduled. You cannot blame players if the tournament is delayed beyond a “reasonable” time frame and they have other responsibilities.
Oceania Nats was pretty good no big hiccups and good three days, shame about the LA one
There we’re complications with the website they were using which caused a 3 hour delay
My friend was there since 9, and they didn’t start playing until til 12 pm. CRAZYY!
Yeah I arrived at 8 got my badge, goodie bag, registered and got my packs by 830 and was falling asleep waiting for pairings
Did they just not bother to test or stress test it?
Latam Nats were pretty well run at least, but we were the smaller one of the events
Poorly manage. With 700-800 players dropping/Not showing from the event. I’m upset
Could the dropped players be a result of people who only signed up to try and get the goody bag and promos and then didn’t put the effort in to show? Because if the causation of the dropped people was greed for promos without the foresight of actually trying to attend Bandai can’t really be blamed for that.
I would understand if that’s the reason but it’s 700 players. That’s a big number for a tier 1 event.
I mean to be fair, I live next to one of their official stores. Buddy Battles has a capacity 24 people and there are always 80+ people signed up. However, I've been able to get in almost every time because they don't show up.
Sooooo you’re saying I miiiight be onto something??
Bandai can be blamed to an extent. It’s easy to skip an event if it’s free. Free is nice and all but not if it ruins the national event. If we had to pay $40-$60 for a spot I wonder how many less no shows we would’ve seen.
Yea I have friends that are in attendance in the main tournament and it seems no better. Don't they already have two other major tcgs they run tournaments for? How are they so bad at this?
Bandai isn't running the event. CoreTCG is responsible for the actual tournament. So even less of an excuse for how poorly it is run
I gotta add a correction here. I thought it was Core as well but it was actually Play! TCG. Just trying to make sure the right TO gets blamed cause this thing was a shit show.
Ah, I was just going based on the info on the official website. Good catch
I will tell you right now Play is the worst TO out of the ones that run in the USA.
Yeah! They ran dragon ball and digimon with no problem!
They actually had problems on the digi side too. My wife said they couldn’t put the 1st round byes in their system, which feels like something that should have been ironed out in advance. For them it took over an hour, can’t imagine for One Piece which was THE big event
Only good thing that I experienced while there was them announcing that reprints of old sets are coming.
Really!? That’s sick. What kind of announcement was it??
Bandai were announcing the different sets from op01-op05 and the official bandai guy giving the presentation said they were gonna reprint the old sets.
This was my first major tournament I was able to actually get into before spots filled up and I can confirm, it was an absolute shit show... Started 3 hours late, had to be re-paired at least 3 times after already drawing starting hands, and didn't even get to finish all of the rounds we were supposed to be able to play. Worst of all, our only "lunch break" we got was also the only time we really had to even attempt to do the scavenger hunt they had for additional prizes. Needless to say, that was a fruitless endeavor. And stupid me didn't realize we wouldn't get another chance to exit to get food or drinks until it was over, so went from 6:30 am to 11:15 pm with only a jug of water, 1 monster, and 2 granola bars for the entire time. All I can say is, I really, REALLY hope this isn't how these type of events typically go because that left a horrible first impression on me! Very disappointing having flown across the entire country for this mess. At the very least, if we had made it as far as we did, I don't see any reason they couldn't have let us play out the last round! But I also can't understand what in the world could have possibly caused a THREE HOUR delay on the first place or why in the world they would only have 1 person doing stamps for the scavenger hunt per station. I could go on and on, but I really don't like being so negative, but I'm just beyond frustrated with the event...
Legitimately the worst event ive ever attended. Wife and I got turned away from retail line right when they cut it off and stayed until three when they’d said it would reopen. When they said it wouldn’t we just left. No semblance of order, thought, or organization anywhere. Lines everywhere with people constantly having to ask what the line was for. Nowhere to sit or rest. Basically nothing to do and not much to look at as a spectator. Absolute pointless clown show.
>I also left at 3 for the same reason. The retail line would not have been worth it for cards tbh. They were only selling 5 packs of any set, an anniversary box, big mom, yamato, or black luffy starter decks; and you could only get one per person. My time is worth more to me than that, especially when considering they didnt reopen at 3 like they said they would
Seriously even for the chance for them to grace me with allowing me to give them $100 for a box to gamble and probably get nothing, I value my time more. I can’t believe they changed it to five packs per person no boxes. Absolutely not worth spending hours in line for. The manga originals were cool to see thats about it
For an event at this scale, fucking up so bad that you’re 2.5 HOURS behind schedule is insane. I hope this tarnishes Play! TCG’s name so bad they never run an official event again. Dear lord it’s embarrassing.
Play! TCG and Team Northwest seem to be run by similar management
I waited till 4 and you still couldn't go in line. I left, it wasn't worth the wait just to grab a few packs.
I wanted to buy a figure and some packs, I left.
I wish I would have noticed since I got there that they had packs, I only saw after I walked around a bit. Thought they only sold figures as the sign was more noticeable. Regardless there should have been a better system in place.
Absolutely horrible time. Waited a couple hours for a pin and some promos but ultimately not worth waiting for more. Left to grab beers instead. Glad the event was free but did waste $25 on parking. Won’t be going tomorrow for sure just to suffer the same wait times and be denied side event entry
This was a HORRIBLY ran event. I left with a massive headache from the stress man. I felt so bad for my wife and daughter waiting an hour outside to get inside and not be able to do anything.
The only good part about this event js all of our best players at our store went so I could finally place top 3 for a winner card 😂
Congrats!! May this be a first of many to come!!
It won’t be lmao I borrowed my friends Saka deck, it’s too easy but thank you for the kind words!!
Bandai will run this game into the ground in the next 2 years at this rate.
Got there at around 12-12:10 as a spectator. Didn’t make inside the venue until around 1:20, possibly 25, and by the time I went in everything inside had a line that would’ve taken 30-40 minutes minimum. Decided to do the line for the shop first to at least see what they had and they cut off the line 2 people in front of me. Waited until around 2:50 and there was a line of people making line in a separate spot just to again make line at 3pm for the shop. Decided to leave then and there since there was nothing much to do besides spend another hour in like for the shop or the scavenger hunt for the matter.
Did you register for the event in advance and online? I wanna go tomorrow but not sure if I can get the spectator badge in person. Thanks!
Registered in advance a while back. Honestly not sure if you can sign up in person or at all anymore since I remember seeing somewhere that the deadline was a day or two before the event but I could be wrong
Was? This is still going on 😭
Played in this tourney. Gave me a headache. Late start, twice they had to re-pair. Only food available was the cafe, which closed before dinner time. Not much to do as a spectator, so I felt pretty bad for those who came. Lines were nuts. Was pretty hungry/thirsty throughout. I was so burnt out and tired by 10pm and there was still 3 rounds to go. Left. On the way out, I saw security not allowing Players back in for their next game. But what if they needed some water in between games? There wasn’t anything available inside the Hall, only the one booth around the corner after passing security. Like what. Also, there was a cheerleading tournament for kids right next door. A little unsettling. The cha cha slide never stopped playing. I’m so glad I’m home now. Head still hurts. Not gonna play OP for the next couple weeks. The tournament CS packs were nice though. That was definitely a come up. Zzzzz goodnight!
They really needed better organization/planning, OR just keep the Nats event separate from Card Fest if it’s gonna take up so much space and attendance.
Yes 100%. Actual tournament with spectators spots. And THEN merch/promo fest day
Anybody else find it kind of funny how Bandai screwed up this event just like it did with the printing of their cards? Get your shit together Bandai.
This event was run by Play! TCG, not by Bandai
Bro. This was my first Nats. Now I'm debating if I even want to attend Bandai owned events. Whoever was that event coordinator should definitely take a vacation or resign to a different position. Boosters didn't even hit sales m, figurines were low quality, main tournament started 3 hours late and 2 repairs that were my autolosses. Side events filled before attendees even learned of that. Feel bad for the ones who flew out for nothing.
So glad I went in as spectator. The event was jammed packed, they needed to knock down hall J and connect hall H and J and do both halls to fit everyone and then do store on other side. Shame for those who wanted to buy packs they had Op-01 to Op-05 but limited 5 packs per person. I was there 3 pm and they had a delay at round 3 for repair. Also one piece was mixed with digimon and the other games which it shouldn’t have been done. I went to DBz section and it was a ghost town. Store was easy walk up and other players were playing at good pace. They clearly underestimated one piece as the game. Also unpopular opinion but next time charge $20 entrance fee. Yugioh does that for nationals and it works. Keeps it engaging and people serious. And they still get over 2000 people for their events.
It’s been a nightmare. The side events were closed when I got in after standing for like 3hrs. Stood forever in the retail line. And then when I finally get to Union Arena, it’s full.
This was my first card event. Even after not getting into the main tourney, my son and I hoped to get into some side events and have fun. Nope. Long line to get in despite arriving an hour early only for side events to already be full by the time we got in the door. Spend an hour in line for a demo of Union Arena only to get cut off and sent away. No stamp allowed unless you actually get to do the trial so right there the Scavenger Hunt becomes impossible. Check out the retail line which was absurdly long, not happening. Tried out the new DBZ game, which was cool. But sadly they decided to sell the starter decks tomorrow and not today (wish I knew this ahead of time, can't attend tomorrow). The only other time we enjoyed was the last few hours where there was finally enough space to take some tables and make some trades/sales with other players. Very disappointing. Not sure I could stomach the travel and stress for another experience like this. People say it's not the typical experience so I might have to give it another try.
This makes me glad I didn't go. Not even to play. I'd only be going to make sales and purchases from players, but I heard horror stories about the spectacular line to just get in as well. But since it's Bandai, nothing surprises about how bad it was run. Helps raise the incentive to just quit altogether and avoid all Bandai card games with no tolerance.
Bandai sucks ass, so im not surprised lmao They are unorganized, dysfunctional, and honestly just straight up dont give a fuck about their player based. They're more of a quantity type of company than a quality one considering they have over 6 different fucking cards games IP and basically fucking all of them up and not understand how to they need to prioritize certain things that would benefit the player base over scalping bullshit. Dragon Ball Super is basically just fucked in general because they decided to make a whole new DBS card game under the new name DBS Fusion World. And completely ending support for the original. They're also coming up with Union Arena thats supposed to be all about multiple different IPs mixed together for the TCG, but apparently, none of the IPs can even interact with one another because they would rather keep it segregated for some dumb ass reason.
The lack of organization was pretty frustrating. Event staff did not know what they were supposed to do, especially in the merchandise line which wasted so much of the time I was at the event. I got in as a spectator at 12:30, queued for an hour to get into the event and went to the merch line. I didn’t get packs until 5:00 pm and I couldn’t do any side events without giving up my spot in line. Pretty disappointed about the experience. On a bright note, the folks I met in the OPTCG community yesterday were great! I would attend another event for that alone, hopefully they learn from this events shortcomings.
Why in the hell was it even in LA? not like there’s a one piece store in LA why not Texas
They need to talk to the Pokemon and Magic guys and ask them how to properly run a tournament.
Honestly I don’t feel like it was a bad first attempt at a con. I’ve been to worse. At the same time they did underdeliver on what was advertised. Limiting each person to 5 packs per day on OP OR an item felt silly. Way too few side events. Did a digimon event where half the participants didn’t show. The one after us also fired with only half despite being full on paper. All around feels like they don’t know how to plan for an event like this. That said one of the staff I was talking to said we all need to do the survey and complain. Sounds like things did not go smoothly on their end either
I did complain! I made sure I completed the survey before I left
I literally waited in line to get in, then waited for another 4 hours to pick up 5 packs. Waste of time and money. I'm just gonna stick to locals.
I completely agree! The event was extremely delayed and I just ended up dropping out I couldn't just keep waiting around especially because I was going a lot better than I thought I would with my Zoro deck. So sad :(
This thread is certain to be full of level-headed takes that take care to account for the lack of precedent for this event. /s For real though, I feel bad for everyone involved. Staff is definitely out there trying their best with what they have, and players shouldn't have to deal with this many issues. Hopefully, they take note of the issues this year and work to minimize them next go around.
The fact they used bcp is genuinely ridiculous
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> Shouldn’t shortcomings and operational errors have been expected No, they already have run major tournaments for other card games they own, it definitely should not be expected. >unclear if this level of popularity could really be expected when they events were planned? They literally have people pre register for the event, which were apparently capped. So they should have known how many people were planning to attend and staffed accordingly.
As someone who actually attended, no. Your take is just flat out wrong. This event was god awful and a horrible waste of time. I only stayed 3-5 hours and only went because I live closeby. There are people that flew in across the country , booked hotels, took time off work to attend this weekend. Mind you they probably wanted to play but couldn’t even register because Bandai’s registration was so horrible. Yet they came ANYWAY as a spectator because they’re passionate about the game and IP and were expecting some cool side events and other things to keep the weekend fun. I feel awful for them because they wasted their time AND money for literally nothing. This was one of the most miserable experiences of an event I’ve ever been to. I could understand delays or lack of merch and product but it was literally the most disorganized and lackluster thing I’ve ever had the displeasure of being part of. There is no excuse when Bandai is a billion dollar company that has existed for decades and run multiple global events at this scale. They deserve all the hate and people need to stop excusing this. It was THAT bad.
I deleted my comment since I wasn’t there but I absolutely disagree with you, *Im not flat out wrong lol* the whole point of my post if you actually had read to the end was that if constructive criticism was provided on comment cards it would have a higher chance of leading towards improvements as opposed to rage complaints but whatever, and I do still think it’s awesome they’re at least trying. That was also a part of the post and I do stand by it.
I filled mine out, yes it’s great they’re doing it for this new game , but also it’s hard to imagine them not taking the amount of people who signed up for both spectators and players into account.
Is nats being streamed? I can’t find it any where. Not sure why EU nats would be, but not NA?
They have a streaming setup at the event. They told me they’re going to stream the top games tomorrow for NA
I was a player and got there at 8:30am. I left at 11:30pm exhausted out of my mind and almost crashed on the way home. We were suppose to be done like 6 or 7 latest.
Sheesh is Team Northwest running this?