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A small discussion I wanted to start. It’s been three years without a proper One Piece TCG World Championship, even though it’s Bandai’s flagship product and it’s putting up numbers they’ve never seen with any other game. This year we were promised a livestream dedicated entirely to Worlds. Did anyone actually see it? There were lastminute changes, and eventually the official communication was that we’ll only get to see the final tomorrow morning. I was already worried about the direction the gameplay of One Piece has been taking lately, but honestly there’s an even bigger issue here: the way the game is being managed. It almost feels like they don’t really care about the game. The qualification system for Worlds isn’t very merit-based, and the World Championship itself ends up feeling like a local tournament at my local store. A World Championship where Bo3 isn’t played from the Swiss rounds is, in my opinion, absurd. We all know how random a Bo1 can be, especially at that level. It’s a World Championship that doesn’t seem to be given any importance or value. Players are even prevented from posting during the event and showing the experience they’re having. We’re talking about Worlds it should be something positive to showcase, the most important event of the year, something to present to the world to highlight your TCG compared to the others. Instead, it feels like their philosophy is: “The game exploded, so everything’s fine as it is. Nothing needs to be improved.” The most worrying part is that after three years nothing has really been done to improve the situation. At this point, I honestly don’t think it ever will. See you tomorrow morning on stream to watch the finals.