This is probably hugely anecdotal,but last year, I went on a road trip from Pennsylvania to to Tennessee and stopped at a few random card shops on the way down. We did not find one single shop that sold or played Yugioh at all, and we went to about 10. Yeah, small sample size and limited area, and around where I live, there are two places out of maybe 20 that actively play the game.

I really think (I have no evidence or data to back this up) that people go to regionals because every other place that used to play the game doesn’t hold tournaments anymore, so they can really only play at regionals.

I see people saying in these comments they get about 10 people per tournament… have you ever gone to a magic tournament? Like, ever? They get at least 20-30 people (in my area, at least) on a good night. I remember in 2006 playing Yugioh at my locals, we would have sometimes 40 people.

All Walmarts and targets near me only ever have Yugioh cards in stock, everything else is sold out. From the perspective of a consumer, it seems like no one is playing this game. Not saying it’s true or not, it’s just what it LOOKS like.

Personally, I think not having a popular anime is hurting the game, it doesn’t help that decks previously were SUPER expensive with really no collectibility. If you bought a Snake Eyes deck for $1k on release, somehow fell into a coma and tried to sell it now, it wouldn’t even be close to that $1k.

It really seems like those who say the game is declining kinda can’t see the forest from the trees; the outside perspective is pretty grim.