- 6 hours ago
- 15 min read
The competitive One Piece Card Game has grown at an incredible pace. With more events, larger player numbers, and an ever-evolving tournament structure, discussions about the future of the game have become more common than ever. From tiebreakers and event coverage to online competition and new tournament formats, there are plenty of topics that divide opinion within the community.
To get a better understanding of where the community stands, I recently conducted a survey asking players for their thoughts on some of the most debated aspects of competitive play. While the survey results provide an interesting snapshot of the community's opinions, they don't always explain the reasoning behind those numbers.
That's why I also reached out to some of the most respected figures in the competitive One Piece Card Game scene. Top players, commentators, judges, content creators, tournament organizers,..
This article isn't about deciding who is right or wrong. Instead, it's an opportunity to hear directly from experienced members of the community, understand the reasoning behind their opinions, and encourage healthy discussion about the future of competitive One Piece Card Game.
Below, you'll find their responses to five questions that continue to spark debate across the community. Whether you agree with them or not, I hope these insights contribute to a more informed and constructive conversation about where competitive One Piece goes from here.
Q1: Tiebreakers should be hidden during events
Flèche - (Competitive player) - Highly agree TieBreakers should be hidden, it would allow games to be played as they should be. SkepasG -(Competitive player) - Highly agree I think everyone wants the person that really plays the games and wins to be the one ending up at the highest possible position. At the moment with prizing getting so expensive visible tiebreakers makes it extremely toxic and incentivizes people to push the person with higher tiebreakers to go through. I really dislike that therefore I think it would be more honest and much cleaner if no one could see the breakers until the event ends.
They can make standings on Alphabetical order or Random order doesn't matter. Luka -(Competitive player) - Highly agree Can't think of any reason why tiebreakers would need to be shown, easy decision. Railz0 -(Competitive player) - Highly agree Revealed TBs only harm competitive integrity of the event. Would probably have to alphabetize rankings of equal score players too. Should be a no-brainer for Bandai. Gato -(Competitive player) - Agree If tiebreakers are hidden, the standings should also be hidden (highly agree if this is applied), and players should only be able to see their own score. If the tiebreaker numbers are hidden but the standings remain visible, it would effectively be the same. Dog- Enrico -(Competitive player) - Highly agree I hate people selling games so this should be the norm.. Yonas -(Competitive player) - Highly agree Highly agree. With the current prize structure for TCs and 1 Day Regionals, players have a strong incentive to maximize their value during the last round of the tournament by giving the win to the person with the higher tiebreakers. While technically, players would be able to calculate this without the app with public info, making this info harder to get can make that issue less prevalent. Feno-(Competitive player) - Highly agree 100%. The only issue right now in the tournaments is people matchfixing cause of tiebreakers. Without that spliting becomes completely fine without the matchifixing part cause of tiebreakers.
AngeloT-(Competitive player) - Highly disagree You can easily calculate it anyways. Also it makes things more clear so that people can understand why they didn’t/did make top Taj -(Caster) - Agree There is too much result manipulation and "splitting" of prizing to make things work in your favour. It means players are not fairly rewarded for their real achievements and can manipulate other players results and standings in a negative way
Serge- The Flying Judgeman - Dragonothica (Judge) - Highly agree
Also remove ranking during the tournament as that also "reveals" tiebreakers. Ranking should only be shown after the last round has fully concluded. This for a better competitive environment
Niels- Rehnay (Judge)- Highly agree
There is no real benefit to players knowing their tiebreakers, while it can technically be used to check if you're still in the running for prizing it also allows for potential match fixing to obtain prizing which is a bigger issue. As such Tiebreakers should just be hidden, there are no positive use cases for it being visible and it currently being easily accessible makes the prize splitting/match fixing issue a much bigger deal.
Q2: All competitive events should be streamed.
Flèche - (Competitive player) - Highly agree
Stream is an important ressource for the development of the game, it's an amazing content for new players/ players that want to discover competitive game. World should have better coverage.
SkepasG -(Competitive player) - Highly agree Coverage is great for the future of the game, it also gives material for people to study and see how the best players play their decks. It honestly shouldn't be that hard to record the games even if live streaming is not possible.
Luka -(Competitive player) - Highly agree Streaming events can only be good for the game. If proper streams are too expensive to run for every event, even just the most basic "budget" setup should be good enough and people would be fine with it.
Railz0 -(Competitive player) - Highly agree Events are marketing for the game. Not having a broadcast in 2026 is embarrassing, even a basic camera setup with no commentary would be better than nothing. It’s too simple of a job to excuse its absence.
Gato -(Competitive player) - Highly agree A competitive event without any coverage should not be a thing nowadays. In the past, every
Regional used to have a livestream, but now that is no longer the case.
Dog- Enrico -(Competitive player) - Highly agree
Stream is a must to advertise the game and make the community grow
Yonas -(Competitive player) - Highly agree
As a competitor, the fact that some events are streamed and some aren’t is really awkward. Since Bandai requires TOs to share decklists only for streamed events, the players would potentially bring different decklists depending on the existence of a stream. Standardizing it would definitely help players prepare for events better.
Feno-(Competitive player) - Highly agree
Ofc. The tournaments already have a very high viewership, Bandai should be putting more resources on that. Also get me to cast Bandai, im ready ^^
AngeloT-(Competitive player) - Highly agree
No explanation needed, every competition should be streamed.
Taj -(Caster) - Highly Agree
There is massive demand for it. As a caster, I often get asked why an event is not being streamed and players share their dissatisfaction with me about it not being streamed.
Serge- The Flying Judgeman - Dragonothica (Judge) - Neutral
How much I would like it, there is a lot of costs and coordination needed for a proper stream. So that would need more investment. If we are going to do investments, I would recommend to, first, upgrade stream quality over streaming all tournaments.
Niels- Rehnay (Judge) - Agree While I understand that there is a lot of logistics involved in providing a high quality stream with casters, it is just a great marketing tool and it keeps the community involved. Now that we've had a streak of events without a stream you can really tell that players want the latest information and to watch the top players playing the meta in the highest levels of competition. It's being shared through twitter and discord channels by players who are at the event, when this could be incorporated into an entire broadcast segment. Not just the matches being commentated over, but also live statistics regarding the tournament, some reporting of how it's going what we're seeing at the top tables and so on, I truly believe this is a missed opportunity in marketing the popularity of the OPCG competitive scene. Q3: If overtime concludes without a clear winner, both players should receive a double game loss.
Flèche - (Competitive player) - Highly agree
I like double gameloss, i think overtime rules are unfair, double game loss would force players to play faster or at least learn to play faster. It also deny players to slowplay and play for time as win condition.
SkepasG -(Competitive player) - Disagree I do not like this solution personally because it will make toxic players stall to make both of you lose when they realize that they cannot win anymore. I would hate to be in a spot where I know I won and the person across is just delaying it till we both end up losing.
Instead we should keep track of slow play warnings and upgrade them. Punish people who go on time all the time. For example if someone is on time 5 rounds every tournament, and the average per player is 1-2 then it should be clear that they are the problem and action can be taken.
Luka -(Competitive player) - Neutral If they make it like in Yugioh where you get 5 extra minutes it would be fine, so if the round would be 35 minutes with no overtime I wouldn't mind it. However, I don't think the current overtime rules for BO1 are the problem that we should be talking about. I think we should be talking about changing BO3 time rules which I think are heavily outdated and bad for the game, 60 minutes is very often not enough time to play out an entire BO3.
Railz0 -(Competitive player) - Highly disagree I think double loss rules favor TOs rather than the players, so just going from current overtime to double loss I would disagree. If the current round timer was extended to 35 minutes, adding the 5 minutes currently included in overtime, I would support the change.
Gato -(Competitive player) - Disagree Some matchups can go into overtime because both players are in complex situations and
need time to make their decisions. Rather than using tiebreaker rules based on life,
remaining cards in the deck, or similar factors, I would prefer the winner to be decided by a
die roll. Alternatively, if a judge can clearly see that one player has a winning board state,
that player should be awarded the win.
Dog- Enrico -(Competitive player) - Disagree
Judges should be trained more and this wouldn't occur, there is a lot of bias.
Yonas -(Competitive player) - Agree I do think that players should have fewer incentives to attempt to win games based on overtime since OT doesn’t always capture the essence of who is likely to win the game and turns a lot of games into some sort of a “side mini game”. But I do think that there needs to be a tiebreaker for top cut and having no tie breaker in Swiss and a tiebreaker in top cut might be really confusing for newer players.
Feno -(Competitive player) - Neutral
Sounds risky, so I'd say neutral. I feel it fixes some problems but also creates some others so not sure if it's better overall.
AngeloT-(Competitive player) - Highly disagree
This rule makes people fight each other and generates a really bad competitive environment. Also people can just roll a dice to choose who wins/loses.
Taj -(Caster) - Agree
In the current format there is too much overtime manipulation by players, knowing that they can take time making micro decisions preventing there opponent getting a turn to win the game, so a double game loss would encourage players to make quicker decisions.
Serge- The Flying Judgeman - Dragonothica (Judge) - Agree
Of course it is detrimental to control decks but that is something the game is already designed around (look at Japan) and we already went from 35 minutes to 30 minute rounds. It encourages a better game pace but design must keep this in mind.
Niels- Rehnay (Judge) - Agree
I don't think double game loss is the perfect solution and it won't prevent all issues with overtime or slow play, but I do believe it is a solution that puts the onus more on the players to play at an appropriate pace or also call their opponents on slow play. The current rules allow players to use the overtime proceedings as a win condition which is in my opinion against the spirit of the game and causes situations where players are waiting to see who is going to win with overtime before complaining about slow play. Because of this delay the calls become messy and muddled and very hard for judges to give accurate rulings on, because often times the calls come too late to truly establish an issue.
Q4: I like the introduction of Treasure Cups and the additional Grand Battles on Day 2 of Regional weekends.
Flèche - (Competitive player) - Highly agree
Yes having 2nd tournament the 2nd day is an amazing plus for all players, competitive and beginner. I want people who qualify to top cut be remove and refund for the tournament on the 2nd day. Playing top cut is the chance and should be respected. Game should be played in top cut. Removing the access of day 2 for top cut player allows top cut to be fully played.
SkepasG -(Competitive player) - Highly agree
With the game becoming so popular having more events means higher chance to be able to play which is massive. More in person events are always a good thing.
Luka -(Competitive player) - Highly agree Really good change, always nice to have a backup event to play if you do not make day 2 in the Regional on Saturday. (so for example if you are Hrvoje you get to play treasure cup every week :P)
Railz0 -(Competitive player) - Highly agree I like the 2nd chance design of these weekends, it’s not just over on Saturday. Come to think of it, I really, really, really like it.
Gato -(Competitive player) - Highly agree If you have a bad run in the Regional, you still have another opportunity to play the following
day. I think this should be available at every Regional. More tournaments also mean that
more players will have the opportunity to participate in at least one event.
Dog- Enrico -(Competitive player) - Neutral
I don't like to play 2 tournaments in one weekend but i don't mind them having them.
Yonas -(Competitive player) - Agree
Agree. I do like having more chances to have a great tournament weekend with the existence of TCs and EGBs. It makes these events feel like more like mini conventions. One concern as a player is that if I make day 2, it does feel unfortunate to not be able to play in the other event. Additionally, there have been times where I’ve felt financially incentivized to play in multiple TCs over playing the main event.
Feno-(Competitive player) - Highly agree
Yes, double event makes the trips super worthy.
AngeloT-(Competitive player) - High Agree
Best decision ever. So you have an additional chance if you dropped the regional.
Taj -(Caster) - Agree
Because it gives players who do not make top cut an opportunity to take part in a second event. Getting to a regional can be costly, so it gives players the option to make good use of the second day if they don't make top cut and keeps a buzz around the venue on day 2, which can often feel emotionless and muted on day 2 if no other events are going on.
Serge- The Flying Judgeman - Dragonothica (Judge) - Agree
I dislike it mainly due to the stress for judges having a too small team to keep up the quality required. Especially nowadays with the amount of money on the line. For the players, however, this is an absolute win in my opinion. And that is what counts. To keep this, there needs to be good training organized by Bandai for judges to up the quality. This, so far, has been lacking.
Niels- Rehnay (Judge)- Highly agree
They provide more competitive events for people to play in. It means the community has more opportunities to play in these events and also it makes it so the weekends in general feel more lived in. Before hand the day 2 of events felt a lot emptier. Of course some people would stay and grind some side events, but it was nowhere near the attendance we see now with the inclusion of TCs. Also because some people might get tickets for a day 2 event but not for the regional they will show up anyways for the regional and help fill up the often seen ~10% no show rate for regionals. I don't like some of the limiting I see now where you can only get a day 2 event if you have the regional event, but I can understand it's a safety precaution to prevent crowding and respect venue capacities.
Q5: They should bring back Online Regionals.
Flèche - (Competitive player) - Disagree
Online regional as webcam tournaments shouldn't come back imo, it's not a good environment for the game and new players. Online client official with tournament on it would be amazing for all the community and would allows everyone to play from everywhere.
SkepasG -(Competitive player) - Disagree I was never a fan of Online events personally, too much to track, too much cheating happening especially when playing for so much money. I think if online events would come back. It would need to be with unique prizing or limited prizing. The fact that you would get the same prizing for 10 rounds at your desk vs 10 rounds swiss + top cut made no sense to me. Now if we could have an official client or run those events through the sim it would be a different story. then I would love the idea.
Luka -(Competitive player) - Highly Disagree I think online events are impossible to run properly and if we got them back it would just be complete chaos.
Railz0 -(Competitive player) - Neutral In the past I would agree, but with current status of prizing I think it would be too difficult to correctly enforce everything. In real events one judge can watch 5-10 tables at once, online it is impossible to keep this level of supervision. We already see people abuse dirty tactics irl, so I would not support individuals being able to do those same things hidden behind (possibly fake) nickname, no face shown etc. The game currently needs more accountability, and sadly onlines would lead it in the opposite direction.
Gato -(Competitive player) - Neutral Some people cannot afford to travel to offline Regionals, so bringing back Online Regionals
could be beneficial for them. However, when I played in Online Regionals, I had to spend too
much time focusing on what my opponent was doing rather than on the match itself.
Cheating was a serious issue in Online Regionals. For example, players could freeze part of
their camera feed or use other methods to gain an unfair advantage. Without an official
online client, I would not participate in another Online Regional.
Instead, I would prefer smaller online tournaments with less valuable prize pools, so that
everyone still has an opportunity to obtain exclusive prizes.
Dog- Enrico -(Competitive player)- Disagree
This is just a way to let cheaters get top cut more..
Yonas -(Competitive player) - Neutral
I do think that onlines were super convenient and much less financially straining compared to traveling each weekend. However, online cheating was a factor as to why they were cancelled last year and now that the value of the cards have multiplied since then, I’m worried on how much worse it’ll get if they came back.
Feno-(Competitive player) - Neutral
Neutral/disagree. Not sure, seems risky, don’t think its necessary. Heard a lot of shady stories from online tournaments.
AngeloT-(Competitive player) - Highly agree
Demand for tournaments is at an all time high, players wanna play as much as possible but some of them can’t travel that much.
Taj -(Caster) - Highly Agree
Because it allows players on a limited budget or with accessibility needs the opportunity to take part in Regional events. I think it should be open to only players who have not had an opportunity to attend an in person event during the season it is played in.
Serge- The Flying Judgeman - Dragonothica (Judge) - Agree
Agree. But only if the same amount of offline regionals stay. It is a great way for newer judges to get a feel of a large tournament and learn the ropes
Niels- Rehnay (Judge) - Highly Disagree There is currently far too much value going around in the top tier events. Online events are simply harder to ensure the competitive integrity of and I even fear that footage review teams would just be flooded with requests and have several days of work ahead of them simply to deal with all the complaints. While I understand that people want a more convenient way to compete, I truly believe the best way to experience the OPCG community is in person, in the venues talking with people face to face and also traveling and getting to meet more people. On a European level I truly feel like they are doing a better job in providing regionals in many new different locations as well. The amount of events being ran has increased a lot year over year and even the different venues and locations in Europe. Furthermore we're also seeing bigger capacity events. They are doing their best to meet their demands and while I think it's unfortunate that the top tier competitive events are no longer as easily accessible to people, I truly believe that their current direction is the right one for the competitive health and integrity of the game.
Closure
I'd like to sincerely thank everyone who took the time to respond and share the reasoning behind their opinions. The willingness of so many respected members of the competitive scene to contribute made this article possible. If you'd like to learn more about them, be sure to check out their social media by clicking on their names throughout the article.
Now it's your turn: ( https://s.surveyplanet.com/0fe2eyjn )
If you haven't already, make sure to fill out the survey and let your voice be heard. Whether your opinions align with those shared here or differ completely, every perspective helps shape the conversation around the future of the competitive One Piece Card Game.
While the survey provides a snapshot of community opinion, these responses show that many topics are far more nuanced than a simple "agree" or "disagree." Even when participants reached the same conclusion, they often did so for very different reasons.
At the end of the day, there may not be a single "correct" answer to these questions. But by listening to different viewpoints and understanding the reasoning behind them, we can have more meaningful discussions and, hopefully, contribute to a healthier and stronger competitive community.
Thank you for reading, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts!