Tournament Information

A. Tournament Tiers
There are two tiers of tournaments in KDE Organized Play:  Tier 1 – Casual: This encompasses Official Tournament Store level events, Pegasus Challenge, and Duelist Leagues. Tier 2 – Competitive: This encompasses Regional Qualifiers, Dragon Duels, Yu-Gi-Oh! TRADING CARD GAME Extravaganzas, Yu-Gi-Oh! Championship Series, National Championships, World Championship Qualifiers, and World Championships.  Tier 1 events are designed for casual play and light to moderate rules enforcement. Tournament Policy and Penalty Guidelines apply at these levels, but the focus is on fostering a friendly and fun atmosphere for Duelists to play in. These events will use the End of Match Procedure for Single-Elimination Rounds. This means that matches will not have Draws at this level.

Tier 2 events are prestigious events, and will have the highest level of rules and penalty enforcement. Dragon Duel events must be run as Tier 2 events. The Swiss Rounds of these events will use the End of Match Procedure for Swiss Rounds. This means matches during Swiss Rounds can end in a Draw.

B. Sanctioning
Only Official Konami Tournament Stores and approved Tournament Organizers may Sanction Konami Trading Card Game tournaments.

A Tournament Organizer must register for an official tournament with KDE no later than one business day prior to the day of the tournament before it becomes a Sanctioned tournament.

Tournament Organizers must keep all tournament records for 6 months after a tournament’s completion date, which includes keeping backup copies or printed copies of the tournament details.

At least four players must compete in order for an event to be Sanctioned.

C. Tournament Match Structure
A tournament can be organized as a Single-Elimination event or as an event using Swiss Rounds.  Single-Elimination: Half of the tournament is eliminated after each round – the losing player is out of the tournament, while the winner goes on to the next round. This continues until only one player remains, who is then declared the winner. Swiss Round: Players are paired off based on each player’s win/loss record. Players are not eliminated when they lose a match during Swiss tournaments – instead, they will continue to be paired against players with similar records for all remaining rounds of the event. A player may choose to drop from a Swiss tournament at any time by either filling out the proper information on a Match Result slip or by notifying the official Scorekeeper prior to the pairing of the following round. 

D. Number of Rounds
The number of rounds played in a Konami Sanctioned tournament is based on the total number of players enrolled in the event. If specific operations documents have been provided for an event, any round information set forth within that operations document will take precedence.

Tournament Organizers may run events with no Top Cut, provided that information is advertised before the start of the event. The number of rounds and cut (if any) must be advertised before the start of the event, and cannot be changed afterwards. If a tournament operations document specifies that a Top Cut must be performed, TOs may not deviate from that document.

E. Publishing Tournament Information
KDE reserves the right to publish event information such as a player’s Deck List, photographs, interviews or video reproduction of any official Konami Trading Card Game tournament.

F. Reporting
It is a Tournament Organizer’s responsibility to report Sanctioned tournament details to Konami via COSSY or Konami Tournament Software export within one week of the tournament’s completion.

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