Yu-Gi-Oh! bans non-Japanese players from Japan tournaments

Whether it’s Pokémon, Magic the Gathering or Yu-Gi-Oh!, competing in competitive card battles is fun and can be very lucrative for competitive players. Sadly, players have now been excluded from competing in Japanese tournaments.

Yu-Gi-Oh! has aimed to be a direct competitor to the Pokémon franchise since its inception and like its competitor, it also crossed over into merchandise, movies, video games and trading cards. Furthermore, like its Pokémon counterpart, players from all over the world like to compete in prestigious tournaments to prove to everyone that they are the best card battlers. Some of the major Yu-Gi-Oh! tournaments are held in its country of origin, Japan and up until now, just about everyone was eligible to compete.

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Sadly, as reported by Dicebreaker (via Twitter user DifferentFight), non-Japanese nationals can no longer compete in official Yu-Gi-Oh! tournaments, even if they live in the land of the rising sun as revealed in the latest terms and conditions from Yu-Gi-Oh! publisher, Konami.

Replying to the tweet in question, Twitter user staryume elaborated further stating that foreign players were previously allowed to participate in qualifiers but had to surrender their place for the world tournaments. Now, the updated rules restrict foreign players from taking part in qualifiers usually held in Japanese retail shops.

“Eligibility to participate is limited to those who are Japanese nationals and have an address in Japan at the time of advance reservation for the shop qualifying round and on the day of participation,” reads a line from the updated rules, translated by Google.

While this news is disappointing for some, it might not be a major deal for those who do not live in Japan as they can perhaps qualify for Yu-Gi-Oh! tournaments in other ways. Sadly, for non-Japanese nationals who live in the country, it’s a very unfortunate roadblock and I hope that this situation can be resolved soon.