Griffins Gaming are well known for their TCG tournaments that last weekend’s Digimon 3v3 was no different. The event, which took place in Birmingham, UK was a long day of red hot Digimon action. We got the chance to sit down with James from Griffins Gaming, the head judge of the Digimon 3v3 that took place for his thoughts on the upcoming meta.

UK Regional Ban List Drop

Fortunately, the implementation of the ban list does not affect the UK Regional taking place the same weekend as it. There are, however, implications from this list designed to change up BT14.

“I suppose it depends on what it actually is. I’m thinking in my own mind, the timing of it being a day after the full release of the set means they’ll target something in the set. But I feel like it’s not necessarily a bad thing for the community to know. Obviously with the European finals coming next month, giving at least more warning for that major event is more important. They’ve given us a free pass on not running with that format, because running it on the day of a new format would only give people 4 weeks to sort out a new deck out if that’s the case.”

This isn’t Griffins Gaming’s first time running 3v3 events and the popularity speaks for itself. That’s why experienced judges and referees like James are so key to the event’s success. The Team Tamers Tournament was completely sold out. It goes without saying that the Digimon 3v3 format isn’t common. But the unique playstyle is likely to pique the interest of any veteran player looking to try their hand at something a bit different.

Here’s what Judge James had to say about the tournament format, Digimon events and the brand new ban list:

In addition to 3v3s, games like Magic the Gathering have Commander and other casual/competitive formats, do you think Griffins Gaming and the wider community need to explore these more?

“I think there’s definitely room for growth in it, the ruleset is a bit tricky to work around – especially for odd styles of formats. But if you work with the rulesets I don’t think it should be too bad. I think once there’s enough cards behind it, I’d like to see a singleton format, maybe with a reduced deck size.”

Griffins Gaming are the official providers for the TCG Expo, what does it feel like to be the official provider?

“Well, that’s not me, but I’ll be the head judge for the event. I’m not directly affiliated with Griffins Gaming or OPE themselves, but I tend to be one of their more senior referees, and this will be my first major event. [OPE] have tended to use Adam himself for more of the head judging roles and the more internal staff. This is the first time he’s given more of an open reign I suppose to someone who’s not part of OPE. They do do it though, I’ve been working with Adam in different companies for the better part of the last year.”

With the ban list coming out soon – If you were sat in the Bandai Head Office and you wanted to shoot 3 cards, what would you shoot?

BT13-102 GeoGreymon. The new one. Its just too good.
The arbitrary BT12-092 Marcus Damon because Marcus is just… Marcus.
And I think putting EX1-068 Ice Wall [from 1] to 0 is a good idea. Because MetalGarurumon is going to abuse it when it comes back.

The full video interview can be found below. Thanks again to James for taking the time to talk with us.