Naruto TCG: PAX Sign-Up Goes App, Essen Still Open

Until a few days ago, every NARUTO CARD GAME event page said the same thing: sign up on site, no advance registration online. That line is gone now. Bandai rewrote the pages for PAX Aus, New York Comic Con, SPIEL Essen, Paris Games Week and Lucca, and suddenly every show has its own procedure. Or none at all.

Melbourne gets an app sign-up with a fixed start time. New York hands out tickets each morning at a booth that isn’t even the NCG booth. And Essen, Paris and Lucca? To be announced. Four weeks before the show. That’s thin.

Earlier coverage: Naruto TCG: Essen Confirmed, Paris Runs Parallel (Sept. 4, 2026)

Melbourne Goes First: 22 Sessions, One App, One Sunday Morning

PAX Aus runs October 9 to 11 at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. Tutorial Session slots open on September 20 at 11am AEST through the BANDAI TCG+ app, first come, first served. If you live in Australia, that’s a perfectly normal Sunday morning. For the rest of us it’s something else: the first chance to watch, live, how Bandai actually handles a slot allocation for the NCG.

TAK Games, Bandai’s organized play partner in Australia, runs the logistics. Their page also has the schedule the official NCG site skips: eight sessions on Friday (10:30am to 5:30pm, hourly), eight on Saturday, six on Sunday (until 3:30pm). That’s 22 sessions at 45 minutes of play each. Seats per session? Not stated anywhere, which I find odd. One session per person for the whole show, demo decks stay at the booth, and the CP-001 Chakra Card plus sticker still require the „NARUTO TCG UPDATES CHANNEL“ in the app and the post-session survey.

The playmat is where it gets interesting. Every page so far said $35 plus tax, one per person, limited daily quantities. In Melbourne that has turned into a raffle. Play a Tutorial Session and you’re in that day’s drawing. From the official page:

„The raffle will be held after the final Tutorial Session each day, and each winning opportunity will be valid only for that day. The lucky players selected will have until the close of the booth at approx. 9pm Friday and Saturday, and until show close at 6pm Sunday to purchase their playmat.“

Read that again. Winning means you’re allowed to buy one. Not that you get one. Miss booth close and your win is gone. To me this looks like Bandai’s answer to Yankee Stadium (resellers in line, promo cards on eBay the same night). Does a raffle among session players actually keep flippers out? No idea. But now they have to sit through 45 minutes of tutorial before they even get a shot, and that’s more of a hurdle than a plain booth sale.

New York: Wrong Booth for Tickets, Panel on Saturday

New York Comic Con (October 8 to 11, Javits Center) gets a completely different model. The NCG booth stays at #2705. Tutorial tickets, though, get handed out at the Bandai Namco booth #3001, each morning when the venue opens, while supplies last. Walk up to the NCG booth and ask for a session and they’ll point you across the hall. The playmat stays a plain sale in New York: retail ticket each morning at #2705, also first come, first served, one per person.

Also new on the NYCC page: a panel. „NARUTO: What’s Next?“ on Saturday, October 10, at the Empire Stage (North, Level 5), with voice actors from the series. Topics per the listing: anime updates, the card game, upcoming projects. Same day the second roadmap is due, by the way. Whether Bandai uses the NCG segment for new cards or dates isn’t stated. My guess is at least a trailer.

Essen: Rule Removed, Replacement Missing

Now the part that matters if you’re in Germany. The pages for SPIEL Essen (October 22 to 25), Paris Games Week (same dates) and Lucca (October 28 to November 1) got the same rewrite. Just without any new content. Where the on-site sign-up used to be, it now says:

„Information on how to participate in the Tutorial Sessions will be announced at a later date.“

Same sentence for the playmat purchase. Dates, venue, CP-001, sticker, the one-session rule: all unchanged. Only the how is open. Four weeks out.

My theory: Bandai hasn’t decided yet whether Essen gets the Melbourne model (advance app allocation) or the New York model (morning tickets). One Piece Card Game events in Germany already run their sign-ups through TCG+, so the infrastructure is there. The catch is the show itself. SPIEL has no „doors open, everyone sprints to booth X“ ritual like a comic con does. It has around 200,000 visitors and day tickets that are often bought that same morning. An app allocation with time slots would simply fit better. Would I bet money on it? No.

What you can do right now, whichever model lands: install TCG+, create an account, subscribe to the „NARUTO TCG UPDATES CHANNEL“. You need it for the Chakra Card anyway, and if sign-up runs through the app like in Melbourne, the last thing you want is to be resetting a password on the day. Already set one up for Yankee Stadium or Jakarta over the summer? Then you’re done.

When does the info drop? The Essen creator session is fixed for October 22, with acceptances going out October 9. The roadmap lands October 10. Somewhere in that week is where I’d expect the Essen sign-up. Your turn: would you set an alarm for 3am on a Sunday for a 45-minute session if Bandai copies the Melbourne timing one to one? I honestly might.

Sources: PAX Aus 2026 Event Information (naruto-cardgame.com), TAK Games: NARUTO CARD GAME at PAX Aus, New York Comic Con 2026 Event Information, SPIEL Essen Event Information, Paris Games Week Event Information, Lucca Comics & Games Event Information, narutoreca.com Timeline

Kenearos