Organized Play Events (OPE) returned with their most recent iteration of the TCG Expo, this time at the Kings Dock Exhibition Centre in Liverpool. The event featured all 4 Bandai TCGs, with One Piece and Digimon as the standout performers across the 2 days.

Day 1 would see hundreds of attendees in the capped capacity events play in Swiss brackets. From there, Top cut would make Day 2. For Digimon players, this cut-off would be Top 16, leaving most players needing X-1 results to qualify for Day 2. A few stragglers at X-2 made it through but it was largely your one and only loss to make it in.

The final UK Digimon Regional of BT13

Source: Andrew Ogunnaike

It was a long set of months that the BT13 + RB01 meta ran. Unaffected by the new banlist, this will likely be the last ride for decks like Belphemon. Top 16 representation was heavily varied, with only 1 deck represented by more than 2 players.

The event went unstreamed due to the focus on Bandai’s newest card game – One Piece. It definitely saw significantly higher entrants, despite Digimon capping. We spoke briefly to the event’s eventual winner Kaijin “kyrioslee” Lee, who piloted Blue Flare to 1st place at a 9-1 record. The Dark Sphere representative proved to be the best of the bunch on the most represented deck at the event. Players on the deck averaged about a 58% win rate at all levels that weekend.

Meta Standouts at UK Digimon Regional

Source: Andrew Ogunnaike

MirageGaogamon was also a deck expected to fall off after the ban list. It did, however, manage to produce a Top 16 finish with DJDragoon. This deck was piloted to 3rd place by Liam “Shinicarry” Overend in the eBay and Vault X sponsored BT14 side event on Sunday.

Belphemon was taken by some players for one last ride. But it failed to produce the expected results of a top meta deck. It lacked representation and results, with Dwalker, its highest placer finishing 42nd.

Royal Knights was a strong deck in theory with a good matchup spread. Defending Champion Safwan “Saf” Akhtar made the change from Red Hybrid to the Knights. It was player Sid who was the sole representative of the deck on Sunday’s top cut, finishing in Top 8.

Alphamon, separate from the other 12 Royals saw standout success. Harry “DHM” Taylor pushed the Black X-Antibody deck to Top 8, ending his run in overtime vs eventual Champion Lee in Top 8.

Finally, it wouldn’t be a UK Regional without Bloomlordmon representation. The 2 plant reps, Emily “emileeniee” Townsend and Jonny “ThatDude” Lo piloted the decks to Top 16 and Top 8 respectively. The former crediting absent previous finalist Usman Rahman and teammate Marcio “KBeeDS” Vilas Boas for help and testing to be the highest placing woman of the event.

BT14 Blitz Side Event

Running alongside Top Cut on Day 2, A 64 player capped BT14 side event, sponsored by eBay and VaultX ran. Saf’s Loogamon debuted to a 1st place finish. Outpacing Hunters, the newly buffed D Brigade and newly limited MirageGaogamon.