A player, in which we will hide his real identity with the name "Ogi Otago", a brother of a known OCG professional player, was recently permabanned by the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG Philippines Facebook Community and Hobby Station Shop last January 18, 2024 due to allegedly trying to steal an SCR (Secret Rare) Evilswarm Exciton Knight within the premise of Hobby Station during a special Yugi Despedida Event hosted by Nik Melg. 

The "Yugipitik" is a slang term used by Yu-Gi-Oh! Duelists in the Philippines, which refers to "theft" and/or stealing someone's card, either from card binder, or deck.

According to the official statement posted by Christopher Aaron Gabriel of Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG Philippines (The Tournament Organizer of Hobby Station), and Nik Melg, the card was inside Nik Melg's binder along with his other card collections, which are open for viewing, trade and selling for anyone who are interested during the said event that he hosted.

On the start of the few hours within premise of the event, Nik asked other players if Ogi is still coming, as he mentioned since "Ogi said he was about to buy some of his cards", on which, a few moments later he came, pulling him to the side and handing him his cards, and assuring "he returned them back already, in the same way they pictured it".

During their casual plays, a close friend whom he trusted (Joe) expressed his interest in his SCR Evilswarm Exciton Knight, and  he mentioned that the said card was extremely hard to find in the Philippines. Upon showing the said card, Joe carefully placed the card back to its own former space in the binder, beside the UR version of itself, in which Nik assures it was there since he personally saw it.

Evilswarm Exciton Knight Secret Rare price. Courtesy: Troll and Toad

Fast forward to the near end of the said event, when Joe tried to check again the binder, theSCR Evilswarm Exciton Knight was deemed missing from Nik's Card Binder at 5:45 - 7:00 PM time interval. At this moment in time, he already booked a grab rider as he did not expect the card to be missing. Nik and friends (Joe, Chris, and Karlos) spent at most 15 minutes (it was also the remaining time before the grab rider will arrive) looking for the card, asking the people within the venue if they ever saw the card. Unfortunately, the grab rider came earlier than expected, and so Nik's friends decided to instead review the CCTV, as promise to bring the missing card back to Nik. "Don't worry bro, we promise we will check the CCTV to find it as soon as possible.", they said.

It was by that time when Ogi suddenly appeared out of nowhere, asking what's the problem, and what is Joe looking for. Nik was shocked and baffled, especially considering they had been looking for the card along and it was weird for him to ask such trivial question. 

​In picture: "Ante." Illustration of re-enactment of returning the card.

That was the time when Ogi swiftly reached from his pocket, an SCR Evilswarm Exciton Knight - the card they had been looking frantically. "Why did you not say anything?", Nik said, and Ogi replied, "I was supposed to return this to you during the game..". During this time, before he hop into car, he told the others he already got the missing card.

Nik then went home and expressed his gratitude to the community via post and addressed the issue to the admins. The management immediately took action, investigated and then announced the news publicly.

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courtesy: Nik Nelg official statement

The issue resurfaced this time on the Yu-Gi-Oh! OCG Philippines private group, named "Malinis! - Online Rambulan" after Ogi criticized several players for their acts, posting memes and causing commotion amongst other members. A player he made fun of, decided to expose his recent issue, posting it in a group, resulting to his own backlash as a result, receiving indirect attacks such as photo memes, video memes, post tags, and discussions.
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The Hobby Stadium Tournament Organizer, yet again released another official statement after the issue resurfaced, addressing that the player was already given the ban hammer, and they do not tolerate such actions, but at the same time they do not agree either with how the community in the OCG responds, especially the bashing scene.

Theft, according to Article number 308, is committed by any person who, with intent to gain but without violence against or intimidation of persons nor force upon things, shall take personal property of another without the latter's consent, and whether in terms of small things such as trading cards or not, it is still punishable by law, can be arrested and depending on the value of the stolen items, can be subjected to jail in prison to a minimum of 1 day to 4+ years.

Players must be more vigilant, active and aware of their surroundings more, and incidents like this MUST be reported immediately to authorities.