Company Profile
Konami
How Konami is bringing in new players to the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG Ahead of its return to Spielwarenmesse, Konami Digital Entertainment B.V., the company behind the globally best-selling TCG Yu-Gi-Oh!, tells Toy World how its accessible new starter set is perfect for encouraging those new to duelling to pick up some cards and dive right in.
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ccording to Konami Digital Entertainment B.V. (Konami), the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG is a tapestry of memories. One single card can speak to so many things. It could be the ace card of someone’s favourite Yu-Gi-Oh! anime character, a character that shaped that person’s childhood, or perhaps it’s that one priceless card kept prized in a beloved, ever-glittering collection. Maybe it’s even the card that completes the deck that wins the Yu-Gi-Oh! World
Championship, watched by avid players across the globe. There are more than two decades of unforgettable memories locked within the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG. There are also many more memories yet to be made and a new generation of players to make them. In recent years, Konami has made a concerted effort to make new memories and bring in more and more new players. Konami works very closely with retail partners, big and small, to bring fresh faces in. An important part of each new player’s journey is demoing the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG to them at partner stores. Konami encourages and assists retailers with finding demonstrators well versed in the game. Ideally, demonstrators should be able to showcase the game with the right materials in a fun, engaging and accessible way. In the UK, the number of in-store Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG tournaments and events is growing rapidly year-on-year, with more and more people attending. That growth is translating to greater attendances at official Yu-GiOh! TCG tournaments. This, of course, parallels with more and more people not just playing the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG but engaging with the events surrounding it, and with evergrowing sales numbers. Looking ahead, Konami is kicking off 2024 with a brandnew Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG product designed first and foremost with new players in mind one that acts a bit like a demo itself. The 2-Player Starter Set, currently scheduled to launch in Europe on 26th January, is the perfect way for someone completely new to the game to learn the ropes, whether that’s with a friend, their family or all by themselves. With more than 10,000 different cards in circulation and over two decades’ worth of development, the Yu-GiOh! TCG is brimming with depth. The 2-Player
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Starter Set is built with that depth in mind. It uses a careful mixture of handholding and encouragement to ease new players in. A Konami spokesperson told us: “Imagine a new player like someone who doesn’t know how to swim and the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG like an Olympic-sized swimming pool. The 2-Player Starter Set is a bit like the shallow end, gradually getting deeper as that new swimmer becomes familiar with the pool. But it’s more than just that. It’s the arm bands and kick boards to help them stay afloat. It’s the swimming instructor to teach them everything they need to know at a comfortable, accessible pace. And, ultimately, it’s the platform to show them just how incredibly fun swimming can be – or to move away from the swimming analogy, duelling.” The 2-Player Starter Set comes with two complete decks, each one including 40 main deck cards and four extra deck cards. That’s a total of 88 cards, with eight of them being Ultra Rares, making it inherently ready for two players to get straight into duelling with this set alone. The set’s unique selling point (or ace card, as it were) is its 64-page comic book. This book is a step-by-step, complete demonstration of a duel. From setting up the decks to understanding what all the information on each card means, and from summoning a Monster card to activating a Trap card, the comic takes players through each element of play, bit by bit, literally guiding them through their very first duel. The comic book includes instructions using language that players of all ages and backgrounds can understand and enjoy. The instructions start off quite simple, before slowly putting the pieces together into the more advanced techniques. These are the very same techniques that form the backbone of the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG, including duels played at the highest competitive level. Once both players have gone through this illustrated duel from start to finish, they’ll have mastered the basics of the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG and will be ready to reassemble the decks and start their own duels without any guidance. These duels could be played alone, purely to see how all the different cards are played, or against a more experienced opponent to put the skills learned to the test. In time, players could even go from mentee to mentor and help bring another new player to the duel. More than that, players can launch their own journey into the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG universe and begin making their own unforgettable memories. The 2-Player Starter Set can be that first weave on a brand-new tapestry - and there are surely countless more tapestries just waiting to unfold.
