USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
Ricardo Wilson tries to choose which card to play against his brother Duante, not pictured, as they play the Yu-Gi-Oh! card game during Saboten Con at the Sheraton Phoenix Downtown
They say a few bad apples spoil the bunch, and it appears a few smelly players are also enough to ruin Yu-Gi-Oh tournaments at a card shop in Oregon after the store announced it was putting them on hold due to the impact foul odors and dirty bathrooms linked to the events were having on the business.
If you’ve ever worked a job where you were subjected to a presentation or seminar concerning workplace safety, there’s a good chance the person who oversaw those proceedings stressed that the rules you’re expected to follow are “written in blood” (meaning every regulation on the books can be traced back to an incident where someone was seriously injured or killed).
You’re typically not going to encounter many life-threatening situations when the “work” you’re doing revolves around trading card games (a.k.a. collectible card games) like Pokémon or Magic: The Gathering. However, if you find yourself participating in a tournament, you may be subjected to some rules that are written in foul stench.
That is also the case with competitions that revolve around Yu-Gi-Oh cards, and one shop that hosts them in Oregon announced it was temporarily suspending them after players failed to meet the hygiene standards they’re expected to maintain.
Oregon’s Chronos Games & Gifts temporarily called off Yu-Gi-Oh tournaments over complaints linked to stinky players
Trading card games are deeply rooted in the so-called “nerd culture” that attracts a pretty diverse group of people from many walks of life. The community may defy the long-standing clichés concerning overweight “neckbeards” who live in their mom’s basement, but the fact that it’s as big as it is means you’re inevitably going to encounter some people who perpetuate some of the negative stereotypes.
That includes some players who do not put personal hygiene at the top of their list of priorities, which has been an issue to the point where multiple companies that oversee card game tournaments have instituted rules involving cleanliness.
For example, the rulebook for Pokémon tournaments states players are expected to “maintain a socially acceptable level of hygiene,” and the one for Magic: The Gathering showdowns says “attire that either has obvious stains or odor…may result in penalties.
In 2019, Konami, the company that makes Yu-Gi-Oh cards, got in on the action with a rule that bluntly states “You are expected to be clean when you enter a tournament,” adding “persons who neglect self-care to the point that they are negatively impacting the tournament may be asked to correct the issue.”
According to IGN, those expectations were not met by some players who’ve been competing at Yu-Gi-Oh tournaments organized by the folks at Chronos Games & Gifts in Beavertown, Oregon, as the store recently took to Discord to announce they were being called off for a week due to smelly players and dirty bathrooms that had resulted in negative reviews.
Chronos Game and Gifts
The store had been hosting at least a couple of Yu-Gi-Oh tournaments each week before the hiatus was announced, and here’s to hoping the message gets through to the offenders for the sake of everyone else.