thoughts from bandai card fest

"[people] are the power that sustains the universe"
- kamille bidan, mobile suit zeta gundam

outside of occassionally "playing" yu-gi-oh in elementary school and amassing a gallon-size ziplock of pokemon cards, i never had much interest in tcgs. my brother dabbled in magic the gathering, and i have plenty of friends who play, but i never really learned anything about it other than things i absorbed thru "nerd osmosis." in my mind, magic and other card games brought to mind thoughts of asocial dorks gathered around folding tables and stinking up the place.

of course, that's a really unfair assessment. in moments of introspection i realize that i sometimes harbor mean feelings towards people in whom i see myself. the same way a pigeon might attack a mirror when it sees its own reflection. call it internalized nerd-phobia. i cringe hardest at the cringe that i recognize in myself.

a few months ago, a couple of friends encouraged me to try out the gundam trading card game. now, i love gundam. i've watched hundreds of hours of the anime. i have countless gunpla sets i've assembled (and twice as many sitting unopened, unassembled in boxes). i even purchased a couple starter decks of the gundam tcg upon its initial release as a token of my fandom, but never gave a serious thought to actually playing. my friends taught me how to play and we ran a couple games. i was hooked.

other than stopping in to peruse board games or picking up some pokemon cards for my kids, i hadn't spent much time in any local game stores or card shops. now that my interest in the gundam tcg had been piqued, i was scouting locations nearby to play the game. as implied by the cruel inner thoughts about magic players i shared above, i did not have an appreciation for how social tcgs really are. i mean, of course they are. "trading" and "game" are right there in the name. you need other people if you're gonna trade, and you need other people if you're gonna play.

my first impression of the local gundam tcg community was overwhelmingly positive. everybody was so welcoming and seemed genuinely excited when i shared that i was new to the game. for many of the players, this was their second, third, fourth tcg. (perhaps unsurprisingly, there is a lot of transferrable skill and knowledge between tcgs.) a lot of people i met had been playing the game since the beta. my opponents were gracious and patient with me as they coached me thru the phases of play, kindly redirecting my mistakes or prompting me to play more optimally. many of my early gundam tcg mentors remain friends of mine.

i quickly learned that the magic (pardon the pun) of the tcg community was the people. assholes are few and far between. people show up to compete, of course, and there can be valuable prizes on the line. but they're also there to teach and learn, to shoot the shit, to catch up with friends, to have fun. it's a game, for christ's sake. i love my local gundam tcg community. they're the reason i keep showing up to play. i cherish the friendships i've made and i look forward to making more as i continue to play.

this past weekend, i attended the bandai card fest in las vegas. i, and a couple dozen others from my local gundam tcg scene, were selected to participate in the "last chance qualifier" (lcq) tournament for a chance to participate in the regional finals. we were in for a semi-grueling day of high-level gundam tcg play. in the weeks leading up to the lcq, a group of us met several times to practice, refine our decks, and discuss the evolving meta. we conducted open-hand play, debated optimal moves, and would roleplay potential "worst case scenarios" to test our mettle and see if we could play our way out. it kind of reminded me of being at basketball camp. condensed, targeted practice of specific skills that would translate into gameplay.

in addition to learning a fuck ton about playing the game, i also had a lot of fun. i got to know acquaintances from card shops a lot better. we joked and sang and laughed as we practiced. i took copious notes, and carried over a will to play with more intentionality than i had before.

i know what you're thinking. i must have come out of these intensive workshops as the god damned magnus carlsen of the gundam tcg. well, unfortunately i still suck dog shit at the game. in the lcq, i went 2-3 before deciding to drop for some side events. however, my experience playing in the lcq was further evidence of what i had learned early in my days of playing the gundam tcg: the people are what make the game special.

getting paired up with random folks in the lcq, we still had plenty in common. my autistic ass got to excitedly gush about mobile suit zeta gundam to like-minded nerds who knew what the fuck i was talking about. i could chat with fellow competitors from the other side of the continent about getting "double amuro'd" and it evoked the same feeling in them as it does in me. the same way a basketball player from australia and a player from serbia could both talk about a "flare screen" and be on the same page. the gundam tcg provides a common language to spark conversation and camraderie between perfect strangers.

the convention wasn't without its shortcomings. organizational difficulties start to bare themselves when you have to corral thousands of fans thru a shared space. events were slow to start. staff at times were under-prepared or under-informed, or both. technical difficulties reared their heads. and us gundam players kinda got the short end of the stick when it came to extra curricular activities. since the tcg is still in its infancy, the amount of stuff for us to do paled in comparison to what the one piece and digimon tcg players had at their disposal. despite all this, it was impressive to see just how many people are part of this community on a global scale. (and honestly, it's pretty gratifying and uniting to be able to bitch about the shared annoyances.)

i had a great time in vegas. i got to spend a lot of time playing a game i love, hanging out with a group of people i love. i feel fortunate that the convention was so well-attended by the az gundam tcg community. i'm proud of my fellow arizonans who were able to qualify for the regional finals, including one with a top 8 finish! there's something comforting about knowing that this community spans so much of the world, and to know that anywhere i go, there's gonna be someone who wants to play the gundam tcg and talk about how much they love zeta.