Xell | Jinhong Kim (김진홍)

Hello everyone. This will be a long post about my experience at the One Piece World Championship: it will be divided into three parts—my tournament (even though there’s not much to say), my experience at the event, and my trip to Japan. I was asked to give feedback to Bandai about what I experienced, and I prefer to do it publicly rather than sending a form that will probably never be read. I’d also like to take this opportunity to congratulate the three winners—truly excellent players who have shown they deserved this result. 1) About the tournament itself, there’s not much to say.** I brought Ace, I was very well prepared, but I was extremely unlucky. I’m still very calm about it because, no matter how prepared you are, it’s still a card game where luck is necessary. I lost to two Mihawk decks. In the first game, I didn’t draw Red Roc or Round Table in 25 cards, and that card is essential for the matchup. I tried everything to recover, but it was impossible. Then I faced Red/Black Sabo, a terrible matchup, but my opponent practically bricked everything and I won. In the third game, where I faced the second Mihawk, I missed the first Garp, and the second only found a 6-cost Jozu. I completely missed my early curve and obviously couldn’t recover the game. It just wasn’t my day. I’m disappointed, but I played to the best of my ability, so I have no regrets—it will go better next time 😂. 2) My experience at the event, however, was terrible.** We were playing the World Championship of one of the top games at the moment, and it felt like playing a random local tournament in a bad store. Starting with the pre-tournament phase: unclear information throughout, with constant changes to the schedule. I find it absurd that we only learned the format three weeks before the event—especially a format that only Asian players had experience with, not Western players. Moreover, we took part in something called a “World Championship,” but it barely felt like one. There were 12 Japanese players, 10 other Asian players, and only 12 from the rest of the world. So it can easily be summarized as an Asian tournament with a few participants from the rest of the world. Then there was the option to bring a guest, which turned out to be completely useless. They couldn’t stay with us in the hotel unless they booked a separate room, or we as players had to give up our room to stay with them. They also couldn’t attend the event as spectators because it was closed and not open to the public. When we arrived at the event, we met at 8 AM in the hotel lobby, were taken to Bandai headquarters, and had to wait 30 minutes before entering. Then, due to slow management, the event only started at 10:30 AM. There was no food available inside, so we had to bring our own. Even worse, water wasn’t provided—we had to buy it from vending machines at the headquarters. Event management was terrible. None of the staff in charge had any idea how the game worked. The judges didn’t speak English, so communication worked like this: I talk to the interpreter, the interpreter talks to the judge, the judge responds to the interpreter, and then it comes back to me. We were told not to bring anything other than our deck. We were given official Bandai sleeves that became unplayable after five minutes due to sweat, causing the cards to stick together. As a playmat, we were given a paper one from starter decks (luckily I brought my own). The tournament was handled like a random local: as soon as you dropped, you had to leave the venue. I couldn’t even watch a friend in Top 8 because I was literally kicked out of the event. There was no stream for the event something outrageous in 2026. None of my friends or my community could follow the most important event of the year.

After dodging the ban hammer, EB04 Borsalino's price spike up! From just 5980 Yen (Normal) and 9980 Yen (Alt) earlier today, it's now sitting at 7980 Yen (Normal) and 12800 Yen (Alt) This is the most expensive SR Japanese copy in the history of OPCG!

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