Naruto TCG: Essen Tutorials Open for Booking Tonight

Want to play the NARUTO CARD GAME at SPIEL Essen? Then you’d better be at your keyboard tonight. Bandai updated its Essen event page, and tutorial sessions now go out online through a weeztix webshop, starting Wednesday, October 14, at 18:00. First come, first served.

Earlier coverage: Naruto TCG: PAX Sign-Up Goes App, Essen Still Open (09/21/2026)

Three weeks ago the page just said participation details would come „at a later date.“ Before that, it said you’d register on-site on the day. Both versions are gone. The current page says nothing at all about signing up at the booth.

Hall 5, Booth J500, One Shot

SPIEL Essen runs October 22 to 25, and you’ll find the NCG in Hall 5 at booth J500. The session itself is free, but you still need a show ticket. You get exactly one tutorial session for the entire show, period. Try to sneak in a second one and Bandai threatens to ban you from all demo events (yes, that includes the February store demos).

Quick word on the time, because it might bite someone tonight. The page says „18:00 CET.“ Germany stays on summer time until October 25, so if you take that literally, 18:00 CET is 19:00 local. My bet is Bandai simply means 18:00 local time (their event pages aren’t always precise about time zones). I’ll be hitting refresh a few minutes before six regardless, and honestly, so should you.

You don’t take the demo decks home. You do get to keep the CP-001 Chakra card, which is the participant gift, provided you register for the „NARUTO TCG UPDATES CHANNEL“ in the TCG+ app and fill out a survey after your session. One gift per person.

The Playmat Is Tied to Your Day

The playmat rules got stricter. The mat (MSRP $35 plus tax, marked as arriving in 2027) is reserved for tutorial participants, and only on the day of their own session. One per person, limited quantity per day. No euro price on the page.

So if you play on Thursday and swing by Saturday for the mat, you leave with nothing. And no session slot means no playmat at Essen, full stop. Which is exactly why tonight’s booking is such a big deal.

The logo sticker is the easy one. Per the page, all it takes is following the official NCG accounts on Instagram, Facebook or X, or registering for the TCG+ channel.

I think moving to online booking is the right call. On-site sign-up with an Essen-sized crowd would mean queueing at the crack of dawn (and if you’re taking the train up from southern Germany, tough luck). This way everybody gets the same shot. Well, until the webshop falls over, anyway. Bandai hasn’t said how many slots there are per day.

Over on the subreddit, someone completely new to TCGs wants to know how easy it’ll be to get official accessories like playmats and sleeves in Europe. They’re thinking of One Piece, where outside Japan and the US that often means paying through the nose. For the Essen mat, the answer is now pretty simple: with some luck, tonight at six. Showing up on Kakashi time won’t cut it.

So, who’s trying tonight?

Sources

NARUTO CARD GAME: SPIEL Essen Event Information
Tutorial registration (weeztix)
SPIEL Essen: Tickets and opening hours
Reddit r/NarutoCardGame: Super new to TCG!

Kenearos