So, we all might recall from geography class that Asia is the largest among the seven continents in the world. So large, Konami had to subdivide Organized Play (OP) of Yu-Gi-Oh within Asia into three distinct territories. Quite the thought, yes?

So I mentioned three territories right? Aren’t they all handled by Konami based in Japan? You might think so at first, but no, that’s not the deal. Each of these regions is handled by a different governing entity, all still related to Konami in some way. As a result, each territory has its own policies regarding card legalities, events, and player management. We won’t go into the sweaty details of it all, don’t worry. We’ll just look into important differences on how each territory is being handled.

The second territory would encompass South Korea and… nothing else. Enter Daewon Media Co., Ltd., a gigantic media corporation deemed as Konami’s official Yu-Gi-Oh distributor in South Korea. Daewon owns the rights to anything Yu-Gi-Oh in SK; anime/manga serialization, card production, and even merchandising. As such, Korea’s OP is governed by Daewon, much like the TCG was once governed by Upperdeck.

But, with such random treats must come a reasonable stipulation. Because Korea has its own unique language (gasp, it’s not Japanese), and because Daewon prints its cards to be readable by its players (in other words, in Korean only), only Korean language cards are allowed in their OP. But hey, it’s not an inconvenience at all, because they’ve got a more usable card pool than the following territory, that’s for sure.

Now the last territory and probably the most detailed part of this article: The “Asian” territory. FINALLY, would it now include every other country in Asia that’s not Japan or South Korea? Simply, no. The “Asian” region is comprised of Hong Kong and Macau, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand,  and Philippines.  (There is no legit yugimonz in mainland China.) At the moment of writing, I know of no evidence that there is OP for Yu-Gi-Oh in any other Asian country (aside from maybe a number of fangroups who enjoy just importing cards and playing casually).

In addition, there was a HUGE legality issue regarding the use of promotional cards in the “Asian” region. It was once established that promo cards that were not circulated in these places, or reprinted into reprint sets (Starter Decks, Structure Decks, GS, BE, EE, etc.) could not be used in OP. That meant no VJMP, no WJMP, no DT, PP, LE and a lot of other promo set codes available to Japan. Again, imagine the agony of hardcore fans who had imported such products from Japan, only to find they can’t be used. Thus it was a blessing that around October last year, this heavy restriction on promo cards was partially lifted. Albeit not fully, it was a breath of fresh air, as deck building choices became so much wider. Currently, the only cards that cannot be used in the “Asian” region are Duel Terminal cards from DT03 onward which have not received any reprints.

For those players who are still clinging to their English cards or DT cards, Tournament Organizers would sometimes go out of their way to hold non-sanctioned events where such card can be used to receive prizes comprised of OCG products, as a means of to helping them convert to OCG if they choose to do so. Some of us have grown accustomed to it all, but I always wish there were an easier way to handle the Asian community. (By the way, I am currently speaking on how the Philippines would handle it, because I have no first-hand knowledge on how other Asian regions would cater to these players.)

Now, being made to use Japanese cards, this region also follows the OCG banlist (slightly modified to include the DT restriction mentioned above of course). Writing from personal experience, I find it a bit inconvenient that since we are using OCG, we must rule in accordance with OCG rulings, whereas the players, who mostly only know English, would search the net and find TCG rulings they can read (fate likes to play tricks, and sometimes, important things just tend to get ruled differently between regions). Not to mention that it’s up to us judges to get OCG rulings for new cards the TCG won’t have for months to come.

So, I guess there you have it. The Japanese, the Koreans, and the South East Asians. We operate within different systems, even within our own continent. How and why things got established this way, I don’t think I want to know. But there can be a lot of room for improvement for a more effective OP system in Asia as a whole in my opinion. As a parting note, if you do play on simulators online, be nice to the Asians. They’re just out there having some fun with cards they don’t get to use in real life.