Wizards of the Coast wrapped its first Kaijudo Championship in early August, so it seemed like a good time to get an update on Kaijudo organized play and sales.  We spoke to Senior Kaijudo Brand Manager Kierin Chase and Kaijudo Organized Play Program Manager Chuck Arnett in this exclusive interview.

We understand that you just finished your first championship for Kaijudo organized play.  Can you tell about that and what your plans are for next year?
Chase:  From a brand point of view, we are ecstatic with how it went.  It met and exceeded all our expectations.  In certain things that we’ve set up it surprised us, and we just can’t wait to do it again and give that amazing experience to the players.
 
Arnett:  Let’s talk about the championship we just ran August 2nd through 4th.  We had a lot of players come out and visit us.  We invited 48 people and paid travel for half of them and got a total of 46 people at the event.  On Friday we ran two last chance qualifiers [where] the top player in that tournament gets a chance to participate in that event the following weekend.  Both of those events went very well. 

Saturday was the invite-only portion.  Players came in [and we] went through a quick panel, told them about  Wizards, how we see Kaijudo and what we want to accomplish with it and how we intend to work with them to get there.  We showed them five cards that have had no rules text and told them that they would be making two of these cards for release in a set in the future.  They voted on which card they wanted to make and in the end they voted on the blue card and the black card.   We split them into two groups, had R&D go through the process of making cards--how to make the cards fun, how to make the cards balanced, what they want to accomplish in the course of the game.  They were with R&D for several hours.

Arnett: At the end of the day of working and building cards, we decided we would play.  We broke up into smaller groups and played sealed Kaijudo.  We did some drafting with Kaijudo with the players where we mixed in members of R&D with different groups and Kaijudo teams.  On Sunday we started early and got the Kaijudo championship underway.

We understand there is a second season of Kaijudo Master Challenges that will feed into a winter championship (see "WotC Plans Second 'Kaijudo' OP Season").  Are you going to do two per year going forward?
Chase:  That is currently the plan.  We haven’t talked about what we’re going to be doing in 2014.  Right now we have a second season of KMC coming up with a winter championship at the end of November. 

We are working really hard to make sure that our set releases sync up so we have a really elegant release schedule that ties in with organized play.  Wizards of the Coast has learned a lot from Magic does it making sure that they have releases at an appropriate times to support  their pro tour.  We’re looking to mimic that in Kaijudo as well (not pro tour but Kaujudo championships), to have them right after releases.

What has retailer participation been like for Kaijudo OP?
Arnett:  We’ve seen a definite increase in participation.  We’ve gone up about 73% since April when we started with the DCI numbers.  That’s counting stores that are both running events and stocking product.

Chase:  For the Kaijudo Master Challenges, we’ve just announced 30 locations for the second season.  We had a lot more people who wanted to do that, but once again, we’re taking it slow and we’re doing a nice growing build.  We want to make sure that each one of these events is successful, but for the coming seasons you can expect even more than the 30 locations. 
 
Can you tell us how many retailers are running events?
Arnett:  We can’t share our direct number, but we can say that we had 1800 locations running Duel Day. 
 
What’s the consumer growth in organized play been like?
Arnett:  It’s even better.  It’s 154% as far as activity goes.  The number of players in individual stores is going up faster than we’re seeing individual stores going up. 
 
Chase:  We’re really pleased about that.  Granted, we want to have a lot of stores, but we want to make sure that when a store is running something, they’re having success with it.  So 154% growth from April to June, we are very pleased with that. 

How were sales on Clash of the Duel Masters, and did you have enough inventory to supply demand (the release before Clash sold out, see "WotC's Kieren Chase on First 'Kaijudo' Sell-out")?
Chase:  We just had enough to supply demand, and we’re going back on a reprint on that.  The thing about Clash, is we expect it to be on shelves for years.  It’s one of our larger sets.  It’s got brand new mechanics in it, so we wanted that to be out for a lot longer.  We didn’t expect to have to reprint it this quickly but we are going back and reprinting it and making sure there is no shortage of Clash in the market.
 
You’re selling out of the first printing right now and are going back on press for a second?
Chase:  Yes
 
Was the first print run on Clash more than you did on Dragonstrike Infernus, the previous release that sold out?
Chase:  It was actually significantly more because it’s a much larger set.  Dragonstrike was a 60-card set and Clash is a 120-card set--a significantly larger set and a significantly larger print run.  We knew it was going to be a hot set and we wanted to keep it on the shelf.  We weren’t expecting to go back on press so quickly, but we are thrilled that we were able to do that.
 
How are sales in your two main channels?  What is the growth rate differential between hobby and mass?
Chase:  We’ve always focused on hobby as our main retail channel and are being opportunistic in mass, as usual.  We’ve seen the uptake in hobby be a lot faster than we expected it to be, but we’re absolutely thrilled that that is the case especially considering the effort towards organized play and hobby support that we’re putting  toward it.  So that’s definitely working. 
 
When we look at what’s happening at mass, we expected the uptake to be a little bit faster than it’s been, but it’s being overshadowed by what’s happening in hobby.  So the numbers are still meeting expectations and we’re very happy about that; the mix is different than we expected.  But honestly, we’re thrilled about the upside of where it’s succeeding because that means that we’re supporting the hobby stores.  That’s where players are and that’s really where we want Kaijudo to do well.

You would expect mass to be driven more by what’s on TV.  What’s the response been like to the second season?
Chase:  The response to the second season has been outrageous.  People love it.  I feel that the writing team really got into their groove with the second season.  Right now we’re talking about the war of the civilizations.  The reviews have been outstanding.  What’s really important to us with the television show is making sure we have multiple ways to get it out to people because people don’t just watch television anymore.  There’s a lot of people on the Web downloading, so not only can you watch it on The Hub, you can watch it on Netflix or download it from iTunes.  Both Netflix and iTunes numbers have been fantastic for us. 
 
Has there been a change in the ratings for second season vs. first on television?
Arnett:  Not significantly.  We are in a different time slot than we were.  Last year was 9 in morning, which was performing pretty strong and then they moved us to Friday.  We are not exactly the same because Saturday is more of a prime time, but we’re hoping to be able to bring that back up. 
 
So you were Saturday morning and now you’re Friday at what time?
Arnett:  Afternoon.  [6:30 ET, 3:30 PT, ed.]