“Digimon and Bandai TCGs have a bright future ahead of them!”
The Digimon TCG continues to grow as 2023 continues on. This tournament saw the first tournament since the June 1st ban list came into effect. We spoke to Tommy Roberts and Adam Perry of Organized Play Events (OPE), the group that ran the Digimon TCG events alongside the rest of Bandai’s TCG Roster. Dragonball Super’s TCG (DBS), One Piece and BSS joined Digimon Ultimate Cup on Sunday. OPE are, so far, in 2023, the only UK Tournament Organizer (TO) group to run back-to-back large scale Digimon TCG events.
Credit: UK Games Expo
We spoke to Tommy Roberts, Managing Director and Founder of OPE
I’m Tommy, the Director of Organized Play Events, we are a premiere event organizer for TCG and miniature game publishers across the UK. So primarily we work with Bandai, Fantasy Flight Games as well as a few other smaller publishers to run large scale premier events across the UK.
How have you found the Digimon community has transitioned from Online to In Person events?
For specifically Digimon, it was interesting because it came out during the Pandemic, so there were no in-person events. But we ran the Digimon regionals here last year. It was very popular, it sold it very quickly at 256 players, which for a card game that’d been out and came out during the pandemic was very good, and the numbers have held strong over the last year. So, we had an Ultimate Cup which was held in Walsall in the midlands. This year that sold out again quite quickly, and the event this year at UK Games Expo also did very well. So yeah, the online presence has definitely transitioned over to people playing in person.
How does Digimon compare to the other Bandai TCGs at events?
So we had BSS, DBS, One Piece and Digimon on top of that. One Piece and BSS being the newest releases. It doesn’t seem to affect Digimon’s attendance too much, it still seems to be going pretty strong. One Piece especially is very strong. One Piece is very strong at the moment, it’s had a very good launch. Most of those events sell very well and we usually hit capacity quite quickly, which is good. But Digimon is still going strong. For a card game, how long it’s been out, it kind of hit the period now like “how long will it do in the future?” It still seems to be doing pretty strong. The player base seems very established and it’s great to see.
As the only TOs in 2023, how does it feel to be so solidified in Digimon?
It’s great! We’re very community focused, we always try and work closely with the community to try and run events for them and run them as good for the community as possible. We try and treat each community individually and learn what’s different because we know each game is slightly different. So we want to make sure our events [are] tailored more to what the community needs. To provide the best possible experience for them.
Are there any other plans going forward?
We’re always looking to expand. We’re working quite closely with Bandai for their events in the UK. Not for Digimon but for BSS we have a Grand Open [event] at the beginning of July. There’s nothing else we can talk about for Digimon at the moment but we’re always looking to do more events. Seeing as the community is still pretty strong, I’m sure we are going to be doing something again soon.
Private Hire Venue vs a Convention, which is your favorite venue to host in?
We’ve been running events in UK Games Expo since 2019. We’re quite fond of this convention. It’s nice because games get a lot of exposure to people that might not normally play them. You get a lot of people walking through asking “what are you doing?” “what’s going on?” and they may have heard of Digimon but didn’t realize there are these large-scale tournaments that happen in the UK. Running an event at a convention instead of a private venue comes with its own challenges which are interesting but it’s great. I think the players enjoy being here, and we enjoy being here and it’s nice to have so many games under one event.
Communities get to see – the One Piece community gets to see Digimon. The Star Wars community gets to see communities they don’t normally see and vice versa. So I wouldn’t say I prefer either, they both have their own pros and cons to be honest.
Where can people find you?
If you want to know more about OPE they can find us on our website: organizedplay.events or if you Google OPE you’ll find our Twitter, and Facebook page, and we also have a community Discord Channel that you can find on our website as well. You’ll find information about all our upcoming events on those pages also.
Adam Perry, Community manager for OPE on Digimon and Bandai TCGs
“It’s always a pleasure to run Digimon TCG events in the UK, and to see the players develop and grow throughout our events. Our very first Bandai events was Digimon and Dragon Ball Super at the 2022 UK Games Expo, so to return to it this year was an absolute joy. We successfully ran a Digimon Regional Championship and an Ultimate Cup, alongside every other Bandai card game – at some points we were running 5 different events at once which was a huge challenge for us. This was my first year working as a Tournament Organiser, and it really challenged me but I’m really pleased with how I did and I consider the events themselves a massive success.
Digimon itself is very near to my heart as it’s the first card game I picked back up after COVID struck, and to see it constantly change and see success is amazing. I was on the staff at the Digimon EU Finals which was also an amazing event to judge at, and I love the game itself.”
Bandai’s Future in TCGs, and Scottish Pride
“Bandai have been steadily introducing new card games, and seeing them grow and do well. We were running small Battle Spirits Saga card games and the developer of the game himself flew all the way from Japan to watch, meet players and sign cards which was really cool. I managed to get a few signed myself.
It was a fantastic event, and I’m really proud of everyone. Being Scottish, it’s always difficult attending these events as it’s more costly to get to them – so to attend and see a large amount of Scottish players attend and do well was amazing. Shout out to Callum, who got 13th at Regionals playing Machinedramon and Dylan, who got 17th at the Ultimate Cup playing Red Hybrid! It was a great time, I love doing these events and I really can’t wait to do more in the future. Digimon and Bandai TCGs have a bright future ahead of them!”
Thanks again to Tommy and Adam for taking the time to talk to us across the busy 3 day Event. Check out our full breakdown of the Top 16 deck representation during Friday’s regional and an overview of Ultimate Cup. If you were at UK Games Expo and Digimon sounds like a game you’d like to try, we have a list of our top picks for Digimon Starter Decks to try as of BT12.
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