Konami: no more custom mats and sleeves. Players: fine, no more trash prizes then.

Players are just now noticing prize support has been trash for years now?

Konami may as well have a “I topped YCS and all I got was this shirt” tee as a prize

Konami treats their costumers like if they were giving us the privilege of letting us play their game

All ima say is finally people putting their foot down. I've been calling for a yugioh boycott for a while

Have we finally reached that breaking point where the playerbase is fed up with the current garbage state of the game? The game is in a terrible state in Europe. Even Yugitubers are complaining. Hopefully Pandora’s Box has been open by these growing issues of the game that Konami is refusing to address.

It'd be so easy for Konami to fix this too. Imagine if for example they made a special "YCS" rarity. Top 32 gets a "YCS" rarity Ash Blossom or smth. That card would instatnly be worth tons. I just don't get why they don't even try.

It really says a lot when ranking in the top 32 of Pokemon TCG worlds nets you $5000

Imagine if a CEO would have a pay cut to support the company they lead. Imagine that.

Honestly, Rogue Hero, MSK YGO Pasiano and I been saying this for years. I would tear the prize support structure down and start all over. The prizing support doesn't even need to be cash, make it new artwork of meta staples in Starlight Rare. I rather have that. Also give away playmats if you want to start banning away custom items.

To be honest im surprised this wasn't an issue with anyone for years.....I never saw the incentive to try that hard over mid prizes, the time spent practicing, driving/traveling to events, spending money on the top end decks. Just to win what? Why now people having an issue about it now is weird, but eh.

Compared to other games, the price support is really ass. One piece top 8 is like 12-15k. Even Fusion World makes you much and the first events had like 300 players. What some exclusive top player promos can do.

I participated in the Lorcana Challenge in ATL and I don’t know if anyone else has stated yet but the Cindy and rapunzel shown where the non foil versions you got from the prize wall for doing side events. Each top cut promo had a special foiling you could only get from competing. And the Mickey - BLT is a special all gold/textured and serialized promo. So if the let it go is going for $2k then imagine the higher tops promos. First place also received a full foil set, including enchanted rarities, of set 3.

one card in your deck can cost as much as a nintendo switch

If they cant put up at least 10k for a ycs win somethings wrong. They make 200 million dollars annually off yugioh. Regional top 8 should get cash prize with winner getting 10k and ycs winner should be 50k. If a deck costs 1000$ (snake eyes) you need some incentive to buy them. Especially in a game that bans and powercreeps decks.

Just a $500 - $1000 pot prize for first place is a good starting point for Komoney. It's not much from their perspective, but it'll mean a lot to players and then from there, such a simple move will make the game's player base increase tenfold. Allowing them to sell more cards, gaining their lost cash back from tournament sponsorship and then some. Then, when enough revenue is made, they could up it to $1500 or more. Making even more players turn their head due to Yu-Gi-Oh's gameplay. Also it gives a genuine top player the opportunity to literally call themselves an actual irl "Pro Duelist".

i think the difference for lorcana prices is due to also having disney adult collectors, people who are willing to spend the big bucks on going to the parks as regularly as posible

Before I hear people say "it isn't what Kazuki Takahashi would've wanted", i'm pretty sure he wouldn't want us being barred of using custom mats and sleeves either. Konami brought it on themselves this time. Coupled with the awful pull rates from products, the lack of events in Europe, and their failure to address tier 0 formats in a timely manner, this playmat/sleeve issue was just the straw that broke the camel's back. Regardless of whether Konami fixes their prizing or not, its understandable why people are pissed. This company is actively sabotaging their game and the community that plays it. Part of why I got into Yugioh was to get away from the sorta shit that Nintendo was pulling in the Smash Bros scene. That and to avoid developing carpel tunnel. Granted, I was also a Metal Gear fan way before I got into Yugioh. The only reason I got hooked despite my destain towards Konami as a company is because this game is just that good. I pretty much dropped Smash entirely and sunk hundreds of hours into this game in the last 3 years. So it really disheartens me when this company treats its playerbase as nothing more than walking talking dollar signs. Beyond just providing winners better prizes at events, Konami needs to be doing more to make the competitive game cheaper (ie: this game needs to develop a stronger collector's market to offset the loss in profits in the competitive sphere). Konami also needs to do what the Pokemon company is doing and really tap into this game's wide bredth of stories. Like, we have hundreds of archetypes with their own self contained themes and lore and shit, and all Konami has done is make a short video and a manga that only covers a single archetype at a time. Oh boy, I can't wait to have to wait another year to see if they'll adapt the Live Twins this time- nope, they're doing Witchcrafter now... I commented this already on Paul's "hot takes" video, but give me a Konosuba type anime set in the Labrynth lore, and give me a turn based strategy game set in the Duel Terminal lore. Hell, give me a Yugioh fighting game where I can just rock everyone's shit with Zoodiac Drident. Could you imagine a MVC3 style 2D fighting game that has a mechanic that gives you ways to negate or disrupt combo strings, and the only way to perform true combos is to chain block or set up floodgates or some shit? And thats not even considering how a game like that would translate over stuff like Kashtira's zone locking or Unchained's quick effect link summons. Like, there's so much that Konami could be doing with their franchise that they just aren't, even though they have the means to do so. Its just sad.

Konami can follow suite and create Alternate arts of classics cards like iconic cards from the anime and give them a special rarity like "Champion Rarity" for 1st place. 2nd-4th can get the same art work maybe in Starlight Rare. 8-32 get the same card but maybe a similar rarity like QSCR. The big one is to not reprint these special art work cards which will make them one of a kind. The playmats they give out can be cloth instead of rubber for maybe top 16 or 32 and make them exclusive for attending that specific event. Doing this follow Takahashi wish and stays away from "cash prizes"

The Top 64 and Top 32 Prize cards are alternate Foiled versions of the cards. The copies you listed are the commons versions of the alternate art you can win from the prize wall. The Stoneheart is about $2000 and Repunzel $3000-4000 The Mickey is a gold foil variant that is serialised to 500 copies. The one you showed is the D23 version you got for purchasing a card set during the Disney 2023 conference. The Gold Mickey is $20,000+

Literally my locals that I won 1st in has better prizing than these ycs's. 18 packs for first in a 4 round tournament. Where these tournaments get 24 packs for tons more people? Actually smh.

The prizing has gotten worse too, i remember years ago, the mat + packs was literally the entry prize for a ycs (i still have a few of my mats), nowadays it's the prize for doing well and it's just complete garbage. Needs a complete rebuild from the ground up. 1. Event cards given out as entry prizes (e.g. a super rare staple such as ash blossom with YCS-X as its set number). 2. Alternate art staples for top 64 or 128 in say collector rare. 3. Alternate art staples for top 16 in starlight rare. 4. Alternate art staples for top 4 in a unique ycs rarity. 5. 1st place gets a complete play set of the unique ycs rarity staple, but its also a full art and these cards have a watermark (like the 25th qcrs have) of YCS-CHAMPION. If its a staple like ash, imperm, talents, apo, IP, SP, accesscode, etc they would sell for thousands upon thousands, just like the prize cards from other games do making it worth it to put the time effort and money into going to a big event to actually compete. Regionals could do points 2&3 where top 8 gets the alt art collector rare, 1st gets the alt art starlight but the set name is REG-X to differentiate it from the ycs versions, or have different but still desireable staples for regionals to ycs's. There's so much more they could do, but something like this would cost barely anything to implement and would greatly improve the prizing in this game.

Let's be real. This won't change much if at all. Konami doesn't care about it's player base. They'll pretend to care then go back to their usual ways. Its a cycle. Complain, they pretend to care, buy out expensive card board, repeat cycle.

Konami is the Disney of TCG. Price hikes and poor attraction factor for player retention.

I like how Yu-Gi-Oh players just go to another TCG and immediately dominate

I was a dedicated Yugioh player. I got top-32 at a YCS. I didn't top nats, but I made Day 2, almost beating Pak in Round 11, and winning plenty of locals and a case tourneys, and winning a regional December 31. For winning a regional with 65-ish players, I got a mat at a deck box I could maybe get $200 for if I really tried. I started playing Lorcana more. I won a Lorcana 1k, something Yugioh would not allow an OTS to do, and won $300, which I realized was more than any singular Yugioh prize I won bar insane pull luck. The tourney had about 30 people. Then we had the store championship circuit, where top-4 each got a Promo card...now valued at about $650 USD. I made about $4000 CAD in the 10 days, playing in 10 tourneys ranging from 10 to 30 people. If by some miracle I top the Lorcana Challenge I'm going to, I'm not going home with a $200 mat; I'm at least going home with a promo worth at least $1000. Yugioh prizing is a joke. But it's not hard to fix. At minimum, all they need to do is give out real promo cards people would actually give a shit about, and give more/better opportunities to get them. Less mats, more cool cards that have better collectability. Also FYI your valuations were off on some of the promos. Side events you could get a regular Cindy/Rapunzel, for topping you got the upgraded foil version that go from more. And I believe the Golden Mickeys are at least 5 digits right now.

Until the attendance lower significantly they won’t change anything.

1. while players still go to YCSs at 1500-2000 seats, nothing will change, 2.Konami knows te huge fanbase Yugioh has, so there is no need to give more as the sales and assistance at events remain the same 3. Locana, One piece, Pokemon give alot more of prizing just to compete with what is yugioh Thats it, Offer and demand, marketing, nothing else, its our own fault because we love and consume yugioh without an issue, even after we complain

You looked up the non foil side event Lorcana promo cards. The top 64 and 32 foil cards are actually worth starting 4K +. The mickey is serialized and reports of 30k euros was the selling price.

I love Yugioh but the prizing was been trash for over a decade. Flesh and Blood has a freaking Pro-Tour and it’s only a 5yr old game. Yugi, a shit prize card and a trophy. Fab gives the World Champ 100k. Can’t name a single Yugi World Champ since it doesn’t really affect anything.

Meanwhile Pegasus the literal 1st major arc villian of Yu-Gi-oh still had the grace to give a giant cash prize for winning his big tournament

Just go to your locals for the community. Stay away from the higher tournaments.

Konami has been ran like absolute trash for over 12 years. But all the yugioh peeps were not worryung because their hobby was still being supported. This has been a slow grinding effort to test how much slop yugioh players were willing to shovel until they said enough. The funny thing is that prize has been trash for almost as long. Which other games are doing exclusive stamped promos and things with resell value konami are digging out their old packs and the same crappy mats they've had since 2019.

And that's not even Touching the Digimon TCG that's been surprisingly successful after...like, 6 incarnations of the game.

Imagine topping a YCS and you still neg lol. Thats Konami. The money spent on the deck, the hotel, flight. Thats not even counting the hours most put in to prep for a YCS.

Some former players of my favorite now dead tcg, Kaijudo, said our prize support for that game was too good. And they were right. Some of our prizes for winning included custom engraved ipads, embroidered messager bag, boxes, got to help design future cards for the game, paid flights for the Championships and more.

I'm gonna give Disney this, Disney is such a MASSIVE market, not to undersell Yugioh, but like Disney you can take 5 people on the street and I GUARANTEE they will have a favorite Disney character, so I think things like mats for them can sell for those crazy prices because of that, my mom wouldn't care about a Dark Magician mat, BUT A Cinderella mat she can use as a mouse pad? You bet your ass my mom is gonna jump at that.

Ngl this is why the tcg is not attractive to play or to switch to from card simulators. Cards cost too much, playing in tournaments is not attractive, the time spend in playing tcg feels completly wasted this way and its not like Konami doesnt have money to up the prizes either. But they will only understand when the rest quits as well.

I swear everyday I think about going back into Yugioh I get a video like this reminding me why I quit until Konami does better.

This matters for a handful of players. I don't think Konami cares enough.

Great video man, I wish I could leave it in my watch history without my algorithm going 100% Yugioh Max. See you again in 3 months

I don’t how this was a recommendation seeing that I watch a lot of MTG…but they should have quit yugioh the second Pendulum came out.

A great video, appreciate you sharing the comparison with live examples.

I had no idea pokemon regionals paid that kind of money. I'm actually very surprised it isn't more popular where I am.

Everyone saw the prize support for One Piece and went 😲

Reason I quit when I top a ycs got a playmat was time to go this was in 2011 ive gotten more from participating in other tcg event than I did for doing well in yugioh

You looked up almost all the wrong cards for lorcana but you get it for the most part.

Imagine complaining about the trash prize support at the top but not speaking out about the NA trash print quality compared to the EU. I'd rather a video representing AN ENTIRE MARKET REGION instead of the .0001% of players at the top. Biggest case in point? Do a side-by-side of NA PUR/PCR from RA02 with EU. Or CR's from Valiant Smashers (every single NA print I have is matte with no etch, but my DE cards are utterly brilliant). Honestly, prize support at the top is the LEAST of this game's many, many problems and tbh, I couldn't give less of a crap about it since it always seems to be the same people take invites from numerous regionals, end up in the top, and get paid to do it anyway from sponsorship or their own channels or whatever the hell else. This type of complaining is the Yugioh equivalent of advocating that taxes for the .01% are too much. Edit: Sorry mate, I've just finally had it with almost every YugiTuber somehow ignoring this absolutely ridiculous discrepancy in card quality that's existed for years on end and seeing a video griping about the smallest percentage of players instead of advocating for an entire market just put me over the edge on this one.

Digimon, which is now the worst prize supported Bandai card game, spits in Yugiohs Prizes face. I've been saying this for years. Ball is in the competitive players hands

My biggest problem with Yu-Gi-Oh is how expensive it is in the TCG. The cards in the OCG are way cheaper in cost because they do multiple rarely reprinting of the same cards within the same booster packs. Komani short prints cards on purpose in the TCG to get people to buy more packs. This causes the prices of certain decks to become very expensive to build. The Yu-Gi-Oh card game needs to be more affordable in cost to encourage more people to play the game. It's true that the tournament prizes are terrible. The locals and the YCS tournaments need better prizes available since your paying money to play in these tournaments. Plus all of the money and time investing in playing in a competitive level doesn't seem fair just to get mediocre prizes.

Prize support is why I quit. When Konami stepped back in and forced my LGS to swap prize support from $50 for top to packs? Fuck that, I sold out of the game. 9 packs is a lot but not if its Yugioh

The reason why I just stick to locals now. No real incentive to play at a regionals or YCS other than braggin rights for topping.

I will say that the economist in me, believes that as these games continue, one piece and lorecana, that the value of these prize cards might decrease because there are more on the market, even if their special variants.

I think something to keep in mind with the prizing of thesr newer games is the speculation aspect. Everyone knows there will be a YCS next year, and the year after. These new games are not only feeding the "early adopter" collector market, but there's uncertainty that the game will continue until next year. So judging prize value based on the secondary market is a bit of a trap for determining value of a prize. You can expect the value of their prizes for subsequent tournaments to drop off just like the YCS prizes, but the ones from this year can be expected to appreciate in value.

I don't know if anyone else has said it yet, but the Lorcana prices are actually higher. The Cinderella and Rapunzel variants shown are the non foil side event promos. The foils ones are in the thousands. I believe Cindy was around 3k, and Rapunzel more than that,. The mickey shown is the D23 promo. The all gold alt art for topping is rumored to be 50k+. I don't know if there were any verified sales for that one though.

Disney has a TCG? How am I just now finding out about this?

I left for Shadowverse Evolve and not gonna lie, I’ve finally been having fun playing a TCG again

The first regional I entered on January 10, 2004 I got 2nd place out of I think was 194 players and the prize was a box of cards and a playmat which had just the upper deck logo and was fuzzy so you couldn't even slide cards on it. Sad to see in 20 years, such weak prize support for a game that has grown so much. Players deserve better.

For that reason i abandoned Yugioh competitive and jump to Pokemon with only a $130 USD deck i winned $800 in a local tournament

Power to them I suppose. Those kinds of events have always been too much of a hassle for most people anyways. Only the most hardcore players willing to book a travel, get the best cards of the moment, and train for hours are willing to go the distance. Might as well go all in and offer real prizes for the very real effort put in.

You Stated at the beginning that other tcg's die out in about 4 years. Lorcana is brand new (Sep 2023) so it makes sense they would be upping the ante but I have also heard that It is very expensive. One piece tcg is also quite new (Dec 2022) and from what i heard about Ban Dai is that they have just been churning thru IP's with tcgs with high power creep. Those 2 should not be compared to YGO because for all we know that die out in the couple years. Pokemon had way more assets to subsidize their payouts more so. YGO needs more specialty Prizing like high quality Cloth mats at a certain top cut, and make the rubber mats purchasable at the events. They could also give out higher quality or their regular sleeves(great art bad durability). The Alt art of and/or special rarity for meta cards would be awesome for top 8 and top top 2 get different quantities of the current set but with a rarity collection type random (super and up)rarity/alt art. If monetary is never implemented first place could get all inclusive trip toward a ycs of their choosing with an extra day or two outside of the tournament dates.

1:45 "It just sucks yugioh has better gameplay." more like lack of gameplay, because if you have no handtraps or way to interact with your opponent it turns into a solitaire simulator and you gotta hope the opponent messes up during the combo

The prizing is exactly why I don’t bother playing at anything higher than a locals. Regional once in a while. But for the fun of the game. Makes no sense how much a player has to invest in the game to not be able to profit anything. Let alone use what they win. Konami will print tier 0 decks but give a vanilla monster you can’t use in a duel as a prize. What a joke. Also why I’m so tempted to pick another TCG. Prizing.

Playstation or other game systems or actual games Rideshare gift cards A case of the current set Paid flight There's so many other ways to do prize support

Give us some sick alt art of cards as prizes, the exclusivity of it will make it expensive for anyone complaining about making money and stay in heart with creator

I'm at YCS Indianapolis right now. The guy who's picture is on video is here. I think they are trying to get rid of competition.

The Lorcana prizing you listed isn't even right and it's already ridiculously more than YGO. The Rapunzel and Cinderella versions you looked up were the non-foil ones you could obtain from side events. The foil versions of Rapunzel for example are incredibly hard to find and you'll see them listed at at least 5-6K, but up to 12K. The Brave Little Taylor you show was also a different promo. The one handed out to Top8 is serialised, and people are asking 50K+ for it (there's a listing of a Grade 10 for 250K at the moment). Of course the market may stabilise and in the short term these will likely go down, but long term they will probably be very valuable

Prize support doesn’t have to be money to be better

You may have single handedly convinced me to play a different tcg lmao

0:52 zooming in on the big guy as you say “biggest and brightest stars” 💀

Oh the lorcana top 32 and up are even more wild tbh. Those are the side event nonfoils, the foils are like 4k+ and the mickey mouse (serialized gold) has been talked about for at least 40k

Lorcana Challenge top 8 card is worth $55K Yugioh YCS 1st place card is worth $1K You don't need to give cash prizes

Those prices are insane. Are people actually paying those prices for those promos and playmats?

Konami makes most of their money building and operating literal slot machines. Their biggest cash cow is fucking gambling and destroying the livelihood of some poor shmucks through it.

Whats the music used at the start of the vid like the first 5 mins

I think this will never change, since Kazuki Takahashi was never a "fan" of money prices, for him yugioh was about having fun and not "gambling" for money, ironic I know(I mean the first anime arc was about cash prices and such but whatever), but now that he unfortunately died that could change for the better, but I'm not optimistic for how stingy this TCG has been historically.

Y'all are still gonna keep going tho lmao

I can see them doing things like these for prizes. 1. Special exclusive rarity for cards. 2. Exclusive alternative art cards. 3. Exclusive cloth mat (like the black rose one from the UDS). Hell in digimon tcg, they have really sick alternative arts for the prize cards.

The brave tailer Mickey is $75,000 Rapunzel 8k cindi 3k those you saw and showed were from side event prizes different from the actual YCS equivalent main event.

Imagine spending big chunks of dollars to win a Nintendo Switch 💀

if they only cared about prizes than they weren't actual yugioh players.

My buddy told me his 4th place in a local lorcana tournament netted him more then 10 years of yugioh in prizes.

"What else are they gonna spend it on besides Yugioh" I mean.... that's a hottub and a yacht.

Isn't the reason yugioh doesn't have cash prizes is because that goes against Takahashi's wishes?

Wait, this is so stupid. They get into this game knowing the prize support is trash, and its the same reason you quit?

Konami doesn't give a hoot about their player base, and they never will as long as people continue to blindly hand them money for a lesser experience. What's the breaking point? What's going to make the player base wake up? Most of us are blinded by nostalgia and make up excuses on why we let ourselves get screwed. I switched a long time ago and feel so much better. I can only hope everyone else follows and returns when things are better.

Its worth mentioning that the World Champion of the year in Magic can design one card (with restrictions) to be released next set, so u will be forever imortalized inside the game, that alone is a reward that u cant put a price on (if u truly love the game), but here i was thinking that mtg cash prizes were awfull

Ngl i just started playing pokemon and i enjoy it minus occasionally getting dunked on.

Lorcana mats go for a ton cuz not only is Disney a big popular entity with recognizable characters, but they do a shit job at making even regular mats available. Everytime a new set comes out, stores are only getting like 1 or 2 of each new mat, so they sell immediately and all them are extremely overpriced online

Dude even Lorcana’s store championship level event came with a prize card and exclusive mat that each sold for several hundred dollars. And these were promos given to top 4! You could make money just by topping your locals!

I know a guy who flew to Canada for a regional and all he won for top 4 was a Nintendo switch lol

Someone finally made a video about what ive been saying since forever. Yugioh is not worth playing competitively. You drop money to build a deck to play for playmats, packs and bragging rights..

The investment some players make into their deck(s) is sometimes more than the value of the prizes themselves. Insulting.

Lorcana Player here: You mentioned the NONFOIL promo cards. Rapunzel is 4k$ Cindy is $2k for the same cards you had pictured, but with a foil treatment The promos you mentioned were prize wall promos for side events. Which Id argue is still better because I was able to grind side events at ATL and take home a playset (4 in Lorcana) Rapunzels.

Konami: this new card is an easy 2+ by special summoning it Also Konami: we are completely okay with our players going -1000 dollars to attend tournaments.

I've had friends constantly trying to get me to participate in competitive events and I enjoy kitchen table yugioh. I'm not going to play with a top deck that would cost 500$-1000$ to play in an event that might on a good day award me with 50$-100$ worth of merchandise when I play cheaper decks for better prizes in other games. I'd take a loss playing Yu-Gi-Oh but I usually make a profit each time I play mtg or pokemon.

MTG's recent Pro Tour Outlaws of Thunder Junction had a $500,000 prize pool where *last place* got $1,000. PRO TOUR THUNDER JUNCTION FACT SHEET FOR COMPETITORS Winning MTG Worlds, prizing is even better and the winner gets to make their own card, even put their face on it. These cards are played in actual formats (they're released in a new standard-focused set).

It was cool to get a playmat in yugioh for getting top cut over a decade ago when those were only available in high end events. Nowadays you can get a playmat for winning a prerelease. Konami just doesn’t want to update their prizing with the current times. And don’t forget prize cards at YCS events were given out more than just top 3 as of current. This is just one problem that Konami needs to fix in order to keep player retention.

I've said it multiple times, if Konami doesn't want to give out money (for whatever reason it is) then they need to give out something else that is worth fighting for. Personally I say they should go back to what they did for one of the early OCG championships and give out a really nice high quality stainless steel card, preferably something relevant to that year. There'd only be a handful of them in existence, so they'd hold value, and they'd be unique to Yugioh. There.

Bro I’m a Dance Dance Revolution player and I can honestly tell you that Konami doesn’t truly give a damn about the USA market (ironic considering we make up most of the core fan base) Yugioh TCG isn’t any better and I fully agree with your take tbh