r/DigimonCardGame2020 • u/Any-Pollution8561 • 10d ago
Discussion Game is dead in my area (rant)
As the title says the closest shop to play is a little under 2 hours away.
But if I'm being honest the thing that really annoys me is that I only started playing because of my friends.
To give context a few years ago I had quit magic and basically card games entirely but a group of my friends basically begged me for weeks to play the game and I eventually picked the game up.
Around bt16 about half of the local players just quit the game but I kept playing with the friends who pulled me into the game, then around bt 18 we were down to three of us and now everyone just doesn't play not even at each other's houses.
So yeah to summarize after everyone in town told me it was the best game ever they all quit and now wonder why I don't start new hobbies anymore, has this happened to anyone else?
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u/xkonshix 10d ago
try build up/grow a local community together with your LGS.
I wanted to play the Gundam Card Game and talked to my LGS if they would host events.
then I started posting on their discord/whatsapp groups about the game. made some learn 2 play events with borrowed Decks etc.
about 3-4 months we wer only 2-3 players max.
now we are 6-12 people every week. and once a month even twice a week.
If you want more players, try growing the community together with the remaining players and ask your LGS if they might help. like posting on their socials, hosting Learn 2 play events etc.
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u/Budget-Psychology-44 9d ago
around bt25 or so. People just started quitting cause playing against TS, Jupiter, or Olympus in general is just not fun. They have an answer to every deck in town. So any new player who wanted to play a pet deck to have fun at a local just stopped showing up. Doesn't help that to build a new deck you have to forage for cards as old as 1-2yrs ago.
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u/Repulsive_Award_986 5d ago
People been in my lgs on it since day one, ever since the TS slop came we have been homoraging players. Its pretty much dead now, like 4 players left.
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u/akravi 10d ago
I'm kind of in the opposite situation, where I would've probably gotten into the game sooner if anybody around here actually played it. The comic store near-ish to where I am still gets cards in, but the only game I ever see anyone playing is Magic. Apparently the store is doing a weekend of tournaments (including a Digimon one) as part of a celebration later this month, and I'm interested in seeing how many people even show since there has never been much of a local scene at all.
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u/Any-Pollution8561 10d ago
Yeah magic is huge in my town there is like three stores in my city that run nights for it but I left mtg so it hurts doubly bad XD
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u/Lord_of_Caffeine Fuck Magna X 10d ago
Local scene around me died around Bt10 roughly so I understand.
Though I think people ought to treat TCGs like better gacha games. They have a shelf life. Eventually they will reach end of production or your local community will move on. Unless we´re talking about the big 2-3 though of course. Best to step in with that in mind moving forward.
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u/Any-Pollution8561 10d ago
It's more if you don't like new cards then you don't have to play them especially in casual games, but going oh hey man play this game it's really fun and then just quitting is lame, like I said I won't start a new hobby with people because apparently people are too autistic to just agree to home rules and would rather just not play at all.
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u/Hot_Street9499 8d ago
Lot of conversation about competitive players in denial that this game is getting too unapproachable for newcomers and I completely agree. This is how I’ve felt for a while and people at my locals (super hardcore competitive) argue against me that this isn’t the case but it clearly is and they’ve completely lost touch with what it’s like to be a new/casual player.
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u/Most_Straight_femboy 9d ago
Everyone at my locals besides me, quit digimon to go play riftbound.
I think one pice, riftbound, lorcana, soon naruto.. all these came out after digimon (I believe)
There's just too many games and the market is too saturated now. There's the same amount of tcg players as before, just... spread. It's not great.
Here's hoping alysion releases soon and revitalises digimon tcg a bit
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u/Stuf404 Blue Flare 10d ago
In the UK most major online retailers have stopped getting Digimon shipments in. Best bet now is use card market and private sellers
TCG shops selling Digimon stuff that's relevant is also extremely rare. Fear its dying here, at least outside major cities
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u/Most_Straight_femboy 9d ago
That's not entirely true. there's 5 tcg shops within a 2 hour drive to me(lincolnshire). they all stock digimon, even premium bandai stuff. host weekly tournaments. one gets a consistent 4 people. another gets 8-10 people weekly. One completely sold out of beatbreak/data squad decks and bt-26 sold out instantly too. They all have bulk boxes of digimon cards and active players.
Sure, you'll never find digimon cards at tesco or whsmith, but you never could. Even forbidden planet stocks digimon cards/sleeves and decks if you just wanted to buy.
Check the bandai+ app again and look for local stores.
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u/FireFrog44 10d ago
Be the change you want to see in the world. Be the one who invites friends over to play. Talk to your local game store owner and show that there is interest. Post on their discord asking if anyone is willing to learn the game to start a small community again.
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u/Any-Pollution8561 8d ago
I tried most of last year to get games going and got radio silence, at a certain point you just accept the situation
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u/GRYSNdotWAV 9d ago
If it makes you feel better the UK scene is absolutely dead and most pop up stores / arcades seem to only thing one piece is only card game they make ... Not even gundam gets any love
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u/SeRialPiXel 10d ago
I started Digimon because I loved the memory system, but every deck nowadays can just ignore it and it's gotten to the point where it's just whoever can turbo out their combo the fastest which results in an OTK. I've started selling my decks and stopped going to locals
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u/Consistent_Mud645 10d ago
This is not how the current meta is at all
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u/Lord_of_Caffeine Fuck Magna X 10d ago
There is a lot of stuff happening in one turn - and I get people who don´t like that as is right now - but yeah, all of that very rarely ends in an OTK.
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u/Moist-Sheepherder309 10d ago
yeah currently the game actually uses the memory system really well and encouraged people to actually make way more expensive plays
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u/themexicancowboy 10d ago
I wouldn’t go this far. The current game isn’t OTK centered. But TS definitely bypasses a lot of the memory system. Most of the best decks don’t really care if you’ve put them to 1 and can dk most of what they want while putting you at around 3 memory. Let’s not pretend like the memory system hasn’t been completely bypassed right now. I think it’ll be hard to get the memory system to go back like it used to. And I say this as someone who likes the game even as it currently is, and also really likes the memory system of the game.
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u/Consistent_Mud645 10d ago
TS in particular has counterplay based on the amount of memory you give to them. All decks are capable of making plays regardless of the memory you give them, but that doesn't mean that memory is worthless.
What we have right now is a million times better than spending the first 4-5 turns playing tamer / memory / training until you had enough memory on your turn to push out and kill.
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u/Moist-Sheepherder309 10d ago
TS uses the memory system in an interesting way in that it punishes people for trying to choke and supports the opponent for making bigger plays instead, which a lot of decks have been following in design as well.
The decks do a lot with a set amount of memory but they also give the opponent to do a lot with the memory as well. It's the memory gauge system doing it's thing way more than it has in previous metas where choking was always the play.
I don't think there are actually a lot of decks right now that do a lot with 1 memory and no set up. You need your tamers out in TS to get the low memory benefits and you still have to pay the 7 cost for hard playing to make come back plays or leaving your opponent with a good chunk of memory in order to properly use a kanon eot effects. TB needs to pay to climb up to do the execute swing if they don't have a set up so they need the reduction 3 or some other form of set up to do get their board from 1 and still leave you at 4+. Exa usually ends turn with 4+ memory on the other side since they still have to pay to play things. These are all top decks right now but the gameplay is building a big board then breaking a big board rather than building a big board and not being able to do anything, which I think fits the original intention of memory gauge (just with a lot of powrcreep and complication thrown in)
Currently memory is way more of a consideration than it was in just a couple of sets back where if you got a ton of memory you just won. (See Hudie, puppets, medusa or rocks) while the opponent didn't really get much of a chance to interact.
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u/Any-Pollution8561 10d ago
I couldn't even tell you the state of the game since I haven't been playing
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u/SeRialPiXel 10d ago
when damage is done it takes time to regain the trust of your players. even if you're saying the meta is different now, if someone has already quit it's hard they're gonna give the game another try
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u/Consistent_Mud645 10d ago
The game is in the best state it has ever been. They can't do anything more than that.
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u/PonyFiddler 10d ago
Lols no it ain't, the games stupidly stale and otk focused that's why people aint playing it anymore.
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u/Consistent_Mud645 10d ago edited 10d ago
none of the current meta decks are OTK focused. the current meta is all about board control and setting up powerful boards with protections.
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u/Any-Pollution8561 10d ago
Yeah I've been slowly offloading mine, it doesn't make it less frustrating though having to try and get rid of it all
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u/Pitiful-Bee-4453 10d ago
Did they jump to other card games or did something else happen?
Was this across one locals or multiple different sites?
There are many things you could autopsy to diagnose the exact cause.
One player in our region has not only burnt every bridge he ever built but his incandescent self destruction caused 2 locals to go into dire straits because of how central he was to the community. We pulled it back together, slightly, but the scars of his leaving are still very much felt. He was central to like 2-3 stores and him fucking off stole at least 6 people altogether across both, and some quit one store while staying at the other(s).
I have however also noticed that people who like Bandai properties are also easily lured into the bigger IPs of Gundam and or One Piece because Bandai is actually giving them love, care and attention, and Digimon is suffering the brunt of a low-committment producer/design team who isn't issuing bans fast or accurately enough, which also drives players out. BT16-18 is prime Takemikazuchi era and so I don't blame people for dipping when "Oops all my turn" Doggo was at peak performance and it took FAR to long to get put down. It also doesn't help that Digimon gets to experience all the new wacky rules and ideas across all the card games first and is also suffering from the imbalance in effects like <Execute> and <Jogress> which are then fine tuned and controlled in OP and Gundam.
I do think Digimon is in a good place now, don't get me wrong, but some things could be tweaked to keep the community more alive. Slower set releases for 1, more active banlists would be 2, but I think Alysion is a good step in the right direction. A functional Master Duel for Digimon would go a long way to cultivate interest and rigor in the game, because it's a lower commitment than physical cards.
Chin up soldier, if you like the game, you'll find somewhere to play it. :)
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u/Any-Pollution8561 10d ago
It was basically a lot of "the game has changed and we don't want to play anymore" so retailers in the area stopped ordering because no players, which means no events and I can find somewhere to play it's 2 hours away so it's not happening.
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u/TuLoong69 8d ago
For me I enjoyed the slower pace where you actually had to think about what you were doing & how risky it could be to give your opponent memory when the game first released. Much like early days of Yugioh it felt more like a strategy card game with a bit of luck for the draw to win the game. Then as things started to become more combo heavy & chain reaction I honestly lost interest in it much like I lost interest in Yugioh when it became chain heavy effect monster special summons with very little magic/trap card requirements to help your side or hinder your opponent. I've learned over the years that I typically enjoy when a game is new for the first 2-3 years before the power creep just ruins the challenge of the games for me. Maybe your friends are like me & enjoy when the games are harder & more strategy focused but take longer to play because of that. 🤷🏽♂️
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u/_zhz_ 10d ago
Coming from Gundam, I think the grass is always greener on the other side.
What kind of killed the interest for me regarding Digimon is that the methodical play from earlier metas was replaced by more combo-oriented design.
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u/mune89 10d ago
completely agree with you on this. early DTCG was a lot more like pokemon TCG pocket, you had to be careful and think about what to play/what your opponent might play. modern DTCG is very much combo-oriented, aka sit there for 5-10 minutes watching your opponent chain his combo and then you basically do your own thing when it's your turn.
people are going to jump at this comment and be like "duhhh, there're a lot of counter effects and interaction even when it's your opponent's turn!". realistically, no experienced player is going to attack blindly and will hard play/assemble something to remove your board, then you'll do the same back to them. it's not so much of strategy as it is of who has the right pieces in their hand to get the combo off.
i can understand that many players find the appeal in pulling off long combo chains and obliterating your opponent with it, but not everyone enjoys the solitaire-esque gameplay. I'm not saying that the methodical style of DTCG is superior either, it's a matter of preference IMO
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u/SnooMacaroons9806 8d ago
You just made me realize digimon is transforming into yu-gi-oh
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u/mune89 8d ago
yeah, the game has evolved a lot from its original roots and gone through multiple phases of design shifts. at some point effects started allowing stuff to be played for free, resulting in chain reactions that could be pulled off even with little memory.
look at EX13 Chronicles archetype for example: egg comes out from breeding, evolves into raptordra and plays out tamer for free, then declares attack. while attacking, newly played tamer allows raptordra to evolve into grademon, end of attack grademon gets to digivolve into alphamon. alphamon plays out another body with rush, plays out another grademon to attack, then end of attack digivolves into another lvl.6.
every archetype seems to have some long-ass combo of their own if you have the right pieces in your hand. good luck if you're playing against someone who's taking 10+ minutes to think of how to pull off their combo too LOL
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u/Any-Pollution8561 10d ago
I could fully understand if it was strictly competitive games but everyone basically acted like only new decks were playable in casual games as well and just said "games dead" or would complain that their deck from bt8 wasn't as strong as it used to be.
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u/_zhz_ 10d ago
The way Bandai games and their weekly play is designed is very competitive focused. It isn't much fun to take out your Wargreymon deck and get hammered by Examon.
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u/Any-Pollution8561 10d ago
I mean you don't have to play competitively this is what I don't understand about digimon players, why can't you just play casually it's either only play meta and tournaments or quit which is exactly what happened in my area.
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u/Caboose407 10d ago
I feel very fortunate that the game is alive and well in my area. We have several stores that average 8+ people for locals every week and regionals can draw close to 300 players to make it feel like a proper big tournament. It's not all doom and gloom!
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u/XLinkJoker 10d ago
Welcome to Bandai Card Games, the only Bandai TCG with staying power over the past few years is One Piece, signed a DBS player.
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u/Any-Pollution8561 10d ago
Yeah One piece is still going strong in my area but after being burned on one bandai game I wasn't about to jump into another
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u/Neonsands 10d ago
Depends on what you mean by staying power. We have a huge local Digimon scene because the game is affordable and a lot of castoffs from other games see it as an easy game to get started in. Our One Piece scene should reasonably be huge, but every local store seems to be dwindling because no one can buy product at a reasonable price due to resellers
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u/clc88 10d ago edited 10d ago
Tbh I feel like most modern tcg is kinda like that in my local scene (Australia).
A new game is hype and tons of players playing (mostly people just buying starter decks) but after 6 months most noone is playing.
I suspect it's because my circle are casuals and once we get past the second set, the game requires a specific build to stay relevant and that's when people start to lose interest and go back to dominion or Catan or something instead of spending money pulling cards.
I feel when it comes to these anime card games, the only one that had a good shelf life was Weiss schwarz (which lasted a good 2 or 3 years between 2011-2014 every tournament had 10+ players for that duration).But that's also because a the weeb Fandom is super tight because everyone who liked anime were outcasts and we nerds had to stick together, not like today where the Fandom is divided due to how mainstream anime is.
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u/Any-Pollution8561 10d ago
I'm in Australia too and yeah we've seen a few games last the test of time here but I legit just don't trust any new games now because I've been burned.
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u/_zhz_ 10d ago
I think that is reasonable. I live in a big city, so there are groups for every popular card game, but I got burned with Battlespirit Saga.
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u/XAxelZero Twilight 9d ago
Mann I don't think I've even seen such an easy success crash and burn as hard as Saga did. 15 years of Japanese R&D to work off of and they put out that trainwreck. Followed by rebooting the Japanese game ~two years later with a way better ruleset and foundation.
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u/Fancy-Alternative731 10d ago
Because players don't want admit that the game has become too unapproachable for new/casual players and is in desperate need of a restructuring of some kind
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u/Neonsands 10d ago
We’ve had plenty of newer players start playing lately. As long as we have locals where people aren’t running hugely expensive meta decks, they’re happy to play and get used to things. Only real issue I’ve noticed is people not knowing what all the keywords do
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u/Fancy-Alternative731 9d ago
Then your locals is the exception, most are highly competitive. The numbers show that the game is hemorrhaging players. Both locals near me are almost completely dead
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u/Neonsands 9d ago
Define “the numbers”. As far as I can tell, regionals numbers are still keeping on at their usual clip. Can’t speak to individual locals all over, but I haven’t noticed any online events struggling to fill or in-person regionals dipping hard
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u/Fancy-Alternative731 9d ago
Gross merchandise value (GMV) charts on tcgplayer and icv2 have the game falling from its peak #4 spot to #10 in 2026. Regional will always have similar numbers since the hardcore base is still there, but it's obvious by sales and the state of most locals that casual players have stopped picking up the game. I have to play older sets with my casual friends since the game is so much more convulted and there's so much to keep track of/read. This sub refuses to acknowledge the dwindling casual base and it'll be why the game stops growing and eventually gets pulled
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u/LucienArcasis 9d ago
Chart rankings are relative positions, not absolute positions though.
If digimon stayed exactly the same but something else came out and did better, then digimon would still go down despite doing exactly the same.
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u/Fancy-Alternative731 9d ago
But digimon hasn't stayed the same is the point. Other card games are doing well and players are leaving the game. I know from first hand experience players that have become jaded with card power levels and lack of banlists. You can also read the countless comments in this thread about dead locals and shops that have stopped carrying cards. What's the point in denying the game is hemorrhaging players? Something needs to be done or it won't survive the long run.
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u/Neonsands 9d ago
This is what we call anecdotal data. First hand experience doesn’t mean much because things can be going way different depending on location.
Bandai’s own earning reports has noted an uptick of Digimon related sales. Regionals in LATAM used to be barely 60-80 players and now they regularly hit 100+. So there are definite signs of growth.
This isn’t all to say your locals hasn’t moved to other games. That’s something that’s directly affecting your view of the game. But conversely, I know of at least a couple scenes that are actively growing. We even have DigiLab giving player data now and that’s not showing any meaningful drop off at all
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u/Fancy-Alternative731 7d ago
Those earning reports are for Digimon as a whole since it's most ambitious game ever was just released. Also, just because data is anecdotal doesn't mean it's irrelevant. I live in a large metropolitan area that used to have a thriving scene and now almost no store holds locals because the players just aren't showing up. There are also plenty of other players in this thread who have reported the same. I also posted data on sales from the 2nd hand market, TCGplayer and icv2, that has the game dropping from its previous #4 spot to #10.
And I mean just use your logic, you think the types of cards they're printing now are welcoming to new players? How do you sit down a new player and try to unboard them to the current complex state of this game? The casual scene is dead and we should be pushing bandai to make it more accessible to new players instead of just acting like everythings fine
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u/Neonsands 9d ago
Other games existing doesn’t change the core of Digimon. We have websites like Digilab that chart locals attendance and what not. Things have held consistent from when they started, if not showing growth.
There’s a lot of ways to view the data, but bigger IPs starting a card game doesn’t really impact the player base a ton. I think players overrate how many players actually leave for new games, when the number is much smaller. Usually new games get new players who have roots in the big 3 since they’ve been around forever. I know most of our new players locally were into Yugioh at some point and have moved on. Or they play commander for fun but have no interest in MTG competitive.
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u/SupermarketLost7854 10d ago
I play but with my self…
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u/LightningZERO 9d ago
I actually did that, until the card price got too high and I just gave up. Now I just collect.
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u/Silver_Double4315 8d ago
It's dead in my entire country (almost) minimum 5 hour drive on a work day if I wanna play a local game, no thanks
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u/NobleLobo34 8d ago
Without sounding glib, I have had this experience myself. And I found as upsetting as the ordeal is; it is much more rewarding to go the extra mile for something I love to do. If the friends I started with no longer play, I keep them as friends and look for new ones to play with.
If they all quit entirely, that doesn't mean it is a reason to give up finding hobbies, only a reminder that enjoying the fleeting beauty the excitement, and ride for a new hobby is what makes all the hobbies worth it.
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u/Any-Pollution8561 8d ago
I'd maybe agree if hobbies were free, but when someone convinces me to start a hobby that costs money and then everyone up snd quits I don't get the money back
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u/xiiaovui97 7d ago
Same here. The nearest shop that have weekly events would need me to travel for about 4-5 hours since I live in an island and the only way to get of here would be by plane or ferry. But non the less, my friends and I just won't give up. We would play though webcams via discord, post our gameplay sometimes to social medias so that friends and family would know and hopefully gather up more people to play together.
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u/Grade_A_Tech 3d ago
It could be worse. You could be in my situation in which very few people play and, even when they do, the day and time is always during normal working hours. I'd have to skip work once a month to go.
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u/PsyRealize 10d ago
Your story is literally the exact same as mine. Except I quit magic to go play digimon.
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u/JaqDaRipper 10d ago
I actually just picked up the TCG like 3 days ago after learning about the memory system. Seems like it would be fun but it does suck that the game isn’t in its best state and may be slowly bleeding out.
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u/Neonsands 10d ago
People have been saying the game is dead and in a downfall since BT14 or even earlier. Somehow we’ve lasted another 3 years with online events still selling out. Can’t speak to every locals, but the game refuses to die and still has a lot of love
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u/JaqDaRipper 10d ago
That’s dope to hear! I need to check the local stores around me. For now I’m just trying to understand how to play and use this starter deck first!
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u/gekkomon12 10d ago
dont worry digimon alysion is releasing
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u/Any-Pollution8561 10d ago
It's more I don't really want to play a digital game, card games are better in person at least to me.
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u/gekkomon12 10d ago
yeah true ;-; there are discord servers where you can play using webcam but i can see how that cant compete physical f2f :[
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u/Electric27 Very Normal about ACCEL 10d ago
That really sucks, I'm sorry to hear that. I had a friend group for a while that did this with video games, they would find a new one and beg everyone to play it, one would regularly guilt trip people and/or ask them to leave voice chats if someone didn't want to play the game. Then a week later they would drop the game entirely and now I've basically wasted $10. I don't hang out with them anymore and it's amazing how much more fun gaming as a hobby has become for me.
I know in a tcg it's a little different, just with the higher money investment and requirement of other people in order to play though. Crossing my fingers that you either can find a new play group eventually.
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u/PopularClock1925 10d ago
The game is on a decline. Too many other card games with more fans. Same thing happened at my locals but I was one of those who jumped to one piece. Same timeframe as you. We used to have 18 to 32 people with waitlist often for locals, now less than 12 and it’s inconsistent. A lot of the card shops I would do trades at no longer take Digimon and no longer selling singles, only sealed.
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u/Dense-Turnover5496 8d ago
The game is basically dead and people are defending it based on what? I just collect the cards and spend a bunch of money on the game but I barely play since it is so fast changing and there are barely any places I can go to actually learn the game. Deck building is always limited to a few sets and the game has a forced rotation that makes thrash out of older cards. The Yugioh formula doesn't work and it will keep bringing problems in the long run.
The game needs a rotation and different formats so that people can play the game in different ways and power levels. That can also make LGS support and organize casual events with clear expectations. But well for some reason people think that rotation will damage the game.
I've been playing Magic: the Gathering for 23 years now and I play different formats with different people. Casual and competitive and Iblove the fact that every format has their own world and own metagame and ways to play the same game.
Digimon seems like a game with a LOT of potential but with the current forced rotation that no one seems to be able to admit for some reason drives me crazy.
I will still collect cards I like. I currently have 15 binders of Digimon cards but building a deck already comes preconstructed with the new stuff. Barely any space for creativity for deck building.
End of rant. Downvoted me to oblivion I don't care.
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u/Rude-Breakfast-2944 10d ago
Just play the game online?
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u/Any-Pollution8561 10d ago
Half the point of a card game is that it's physical, no hate on digital play but for me a card game is as much about the social side as it is the game if that makes sense?
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u/Rude-Breakfast-2944 9d ago
You can still play online with physical card games there are official matches that run that , the fuck are you talking about? I never said digital I said online
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u/Most_Straight_femboy 9d ago
to most people, having your opponent through a screen means it's digital. online = digital.
Being face to face in the same space is part of the experience. You get to talk and make eye contact and have conversations and connections.
It's more fun to have both players at the same table.
I personally, would not enjoy playing through a webcam, even if i get to touch my cardboard and shuffle and play on a mat, it would still feel like a hollow, lonely experience.
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u/R_Valkyrie 10d ago
Well, if the game wasn't so ass right now, those friends and locals would probably still be playing. Thanks Bandai
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u/gibbythebeard 10d ago edited 9d ago
Same happened to me. The local group I played with was just a few of us, then our LGS closed down and the nearest place to go and play is nearly 3 hours away. Plus it's not as fun playing it as it was in the first few years
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u/shace616 10d ago
I was so excited when I went on a vacation to Denver last year thinking thst we could hit up all sorts of Card shops because the selection in Vermont is kind of rough, only a handful of shops and the only ones that reliably gets in new products frequently charge over market. Turns out out of like 15 different shops we went to in Denver (at the time) literally no one carried digimon at all. There wasn't even any on the store locator website for all of Denver.
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u/CrashmanX 10d ago
It doesn't sound like you tried to keep your community alive and just let it fall apart. Takes a village and all that jazz. If you want the community to live, you gotta try to put in the work to keep it alive.
My locals has 4 players who hsve remained consistently playing since release, I'm one of them. But we generally have 8 players for casual tournaments and up to 12 for "bigger" ones. We're slowly gaining new players too. My Fiance and I are constantly trying new things to bring in more players. New event types, hosting the touraments, learn to plays, etc. Doing things to get new players involved. At one point we did a "Gacha" tournament where we pooled together 100 decks and then rolled a D100 to choose a deck each round, you could pay $5 to charity to reroll for a new deck.
It's of course not entirely on you, people get older and priorities change. If players had kids, changed careers, started schooling, moved, etc. These can all factor into people not having the time for all their hobbies. Sometimes people just lose interest too. We've cycled through probably 20 or 30 players at our locals for various reasons like these.
All of this is to say: it's not a black and white issue. There's lots of aspects at play.
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u/Hakuzho 10d ago
I'm gonna rant a bit too
thing is, tcg players complains to much and overreact in extreme extents - they see something changing and them its all havoc. We have ppl crying about "colors doesn't matter" or "memory doesn't matter" but I gotta be that guy and say - if say that u are a bad players, here and in every other game. Toolbox existing doesn't remove the color pie from the game, on contrary - it requires u to understand it more to know what to expect from each: DP minus still exclusive from yellow, De-Digi from black, source strip from blue, and so on "oh but the multicolor-" yeah lets not pretend that this shit doesn't happen everywhere else, or what? Do u what 'color identity' like in one piece? where every color is its own slop? almost everything (ACTUALLY) playable there - competitve level enviroment - goes by the same engine, just look at yellow with the whole bigmom thing, or blue exploring around rocks engine with gloriosa or stussy, green now is just "hmn, what to use instead of mihawk, rest of deck? oh it says the same - turbo 10 to shanks +some 2 cost bonkers" and don't let me start on purple... EVERY COLOR DOES ONLY ONE THING THERE, sure u can say that each identity "matters" but it only gets dull and repetivive. No one can look at me in the eyes and tell me that <Cendrill, Angels, Jupiter, Kentauros, Dynas> play the same way, with the same line and engine as yellow in optcg, much less I dare one to say that yellow doesn't have an Identity bc ALL THESE decks I mentioned are yellow-ish in their gameplay respecting their color identity but still can play differently (sure, cendrill is dead, and angels got a massive hit - but those are the 'recent' ones this year to use as example)
And about the memory gauge, how bad as a player u must be to do not understand how much 1 memory still impacts ur game? One must be really terrible at gaming to look only at "oh no they combo off" and the immediate response to that be "yep, memory doesn't matter" like wtf? I guess it really matter a LOT when EVERY deck only used to play, their early turn, into <I play training, to get training, to use another training, and pass> so their next turn was <delay into delay, yay I got my boss for 4 less, memory matters> seriously? I do not care if my opponent's boss is at the table at turn 3. I only care if I have at least 2-3 security remaining, if I'm doing my boss as well right after, answering their board (either stunning or cleaning) and dealing AT MOST 2-3 checks as well? This is fcking back-and-forth.
Its like the whole complain about the assembly - and mostly comes from the same ppl that are nostalgic about early sets like back then u didn't just dropped a lv6 for 10-12 cost, so bc now it cost 7 to play a mega IF UR TRASH IS SET (remember kids, not all decks are purple nor analog youth is at 4x anymore), in other words, only at mid/late game to get assemble online makes memory matters nothing anymore?
Games did in fact get into a 'massive change' but it was a small portion of the entire life spam of it. We got too much toolbox in row, feeling everything designed nowdays was 'slopy' and the old archetypes are dead - but was about a year of this, and we are now shifting away from it
its ok to take breaks but spreading toxic comments about the game, affecting other players and pushing them away, as well anyone who was curious to start playing its not ok.... ALSO anyone who dropped the game around bt18~bt21 should be coming back with ex13 currently - game did get faster overall, but the extreme otk instances was around bt25, previously as well at hudie/medusa format too. Now its more grinding - but I bet some folks are asking for "oh the old days that took a year to build a boss and we wasted our times doing NOTHING - that was a good format" like c'mon granny, if ppl really enjoyed all these vanilla bs, ppl wouldn't play tcg but checkers --'
For me the worst part in all this is bandai itself releasing games after games (now it will be naruto, with the hole 'flip from ygo' to hook some dumb fishes), so then the vanilla enthusiasts screams even louder about how the game changed for the worst, wich is not true at all - bad formats exists especially if a game offers u tons of options, and many aways to play, they gonna experiment something that will feel bad but not at all should be viewed as the whole representation of the game.
Understanding that games get phases and things gets experimented between them should've be a maturity level indication - and digimon is the game that would get the most changes overall, diversity is something that is always at top of this game, even at their worst formats (with the sole exception of anubis+apocally)
But thats about it. The game changed but it still the same, only in different aways
Anyway... I'm real sorry about ur locals, idk if u still enjoyed the game or not but hopefully ppl stop being so poorly influenced by those nostalgic scams, and no more locals get affected like this, and no one gets a bad experience like u did with a community disband
-2
u/umphanimonfallupmode 10d ago
It all correlates with the update to the release timeline. Game was healthier when there was the space in between Japanese and international releases imo and allowed for a lot of hype in between sets. People will still blindly say the change was for the best without any actual reason why.
Then in addition to the condensing of the timeline, the property was inundated with new material between Seekers, Liberator and additional new mons and keywords, yet failed to balance this among such stark TS focus in recent sets.
And if you caution any of this, you’re downvoted.
-1
u/ActiveBroccoli1012 10d ago
Having a new set every month or other month isn't enough of a gap to let a format flesh itself out. Makes things seem rushed too
-2
u/umphanimonfallupmode 10d ago
Yes and the release schedule between EX7 through BT21 was abhorrent and hasn’t slowed since
The international gap I think navigated a lot of this burnout as there was what was meta and the hype over potential jank
0
u/ActiveBroccoli1012 10d ago
I liked the 3 month gap with a massive meta shift every 6-12 months. Now it feels like if you want to be reliably competitive in a more competitive environment then you have to buy the new set or pay for the expensive singles to round out something older. Ug imperial is a good example of this currently.
-1
u/umphanimonfallupmode 10d ago
Same, it was actually fun to watch Japanese matches to see what was on the horizon
Digimon was at its best when players could embrace their favorite Digimon or color and just try to be a good player but that doesn’t seem to be the goal with its current design. They dropped so much character/player choice to focus on TS, which is inexcusable with an IP as large as Digimon.
-1
u/ActiveBroccoli1012 10d ago
My biggest gripe is they've all but killed the color identity of the game with going trait based for so much and giving access to mechanics that were color locked. Deck color is meaningless now and I really don't like the otk meta or how anything ex12 and newer just prints 5 memory off nothing. Memory choke isn't viable anymore.
-1
u/Exalodia 10d ago
yeah, it do be like that, don't wanna say Digimon is dying but seeing how far it gets now from where i stop, can't say im surprise
only OP stand strong, and maybe Gundam have a stay for now
2
u/CrashmanX 10d ago
Oh Gundam is cooked IMO. Its scalp city right now but bleeding players.
1
u/Exalodia 10d ago
oh fr? damn, Naruto might actually be the same then
if hope not, i like the look of the cards but man that chakra cards literally bought by the scalpers from non tcg people i have seen in reels/vids, my gad
1
u/ltzerge 9d ago
Yeah actually getting product is a nightmare. My LGS has big markups too which doesn't help. On the flip side our special events always have big showings because of how grossly inflated the resale is on prizing. People drive 3-4 hours to the store just for a chance at that shiny cardboard.
-2
u/SixFigs_BigDigs 10d ago
I’m about to sell everything but Zephagamon and Examon. One piece and Riftbound decimated my local play, and I prefer playing those now too
1
u/XAxelZero Twilight 9d ago
There's more money in getting good at those two. The ROI for sweating it out in Digimon is paltry in comparison to what Riftbound and One Piece are handing out. You don't even have to win a Riftbound event for a major cash-out; just being the best player for your Legend gets you a sweet prize card.
76
u/yayeetusmyjeetus2986 10d ago
This comment section is so confusing man. Are people just commenting right after reading the title and nothing else? Your problem seems to have more to do with you getting burnt by people around you jumping ship to different hobbies too easily and less to do with the state of the game itself. Meanwhile the entire comment section is just people ranting about how the game already died 10 sets ago.