With the release of our Alter Edition product, we’d like to introduce our plans for what our Premier Play program will be like in Grand Archive TCG! Here is a look at our timeline for what we are planning for the upcoming year.

Our goal is to reach a steady, exciting, and progressive line of events. We want players from all over to feel that they have something to look forward to. We hope that players from all over will come compete and really feel like they are being rewarded during their competitive journey in our game. With that being said, let's dive further into what these plans will look like!

The first thing to note about how our premier play schedule is that our tournaments are run during competitive “seasons.” These seasons are typically marked with the release of a new set, e.g. for this season it is the Dawn of Ashes Competitive Season! We will have four different types of events in our tournament line, with only two really being controlled by the actual competitive season.

One important thing to keep in mind is that events, such as Ascents, are open-level events and don’t require an invite to participate. Ascents also operate outside of the competitive seasons and are more sporadic in timing. Let’s take a look at the first type of event in our line!

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One of the events featured in our competitive seasonal line is our Store Championships! These are small to mid sized events meant to promote the local scene and are hosted at a brick and mortar store.

An interested brick-and-mortar store can fill out an application requesting to hold a store championship. The approval process is based on the number of weekly tournaments and active participants hosted by the store. In this way, it is heavily encouraged for store owners to have locals and to encourage as many players as possible to come by! Be sure to take photos as well; those will greatly help in the approval process!

Store Championships are a way for players to earn invites to our higher-tier events and to support their favorite local shop without worrying too much about traveling far to compete. Only the victor of one of these tournaments will receive an invitational card for the next National event in addition to a special store championship playmat!

Nationals invites come in the form of playable Grand Archive cards. There are three versions of this card, qualifying you to either the North American, Southeast Asia, or Oceania Nationals. The version that you get from winning a Store Championship depends on where you won it! In addition, for areas where there is not a planned Nationals nearby, you will win a "Wildcard" Nationals invite instead, which allows its bearer to enter any of the three upcoming Nationals.

For the Dawn of Ashes season, applications to host a Store Championship will start June 19th, and the first events will begin July 29th.

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Next, our season-dependent events are our Regionals! These events are intended to be larger, and we encourage players to travel to these events from the greater surrounding area of the event’s location to participate.

For our store owners, these events are also done on a private application basis. This will be a longer process than Store Championships and requires much more planning from both parties. The expected size of a Regional is 64 or more players. Larger Regional events may be two-day events.

Unlike Store Championships where only the first-place winner gets a Nationals invite, in a Regional event, only about the top 8% of players of the event will win an invite.

Just by participating in one Regional, you'll get one of these playmats for the Dawn of Ashes season!

Due to the scale of these events, Regional tournaments are much more likely to need more judges than a store championship. Our host partners will be collaborating with us to approve skilled judges for Regional events. There's also a special promotional playmat for judges!

By becoming a finalist (top 8%) for a Regional event, you'll win a Nationals invite card. These cards work exactly like the Nationals invite card obtained from Store Championships.

Finalists also get a promotional playmat, and the winner of the entire Regional receives a special playmat as well.
Promotional Items are provided by Weebs of the Shore. Additional prizes like product and even cash prizes may be added by our hosting partners.

We're already planning all of the Regionals in the Dawn of Ashes season and will be announcing them on May 30th! Some Dawn of Ashes Regionals will be hosting Fractured Crown pre-release side events!

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Moving further up the line, we’d like to introduce our nationals level event! Nationals are at the top end of our premier play line. Nationals are an invite-only event. Invites are initially earned by players who’ve competed and topped in either our Store Championships, Regionals, or Ascent level events! Physical invite cards may be traded or sold by their initial winners.

Upon redeeming a Nationals physical invite card to enter the event, you will receive a CR version of that card in return.

When we release our organized play application, the Omnidex, players will also be able to earn Nationals invites by being at the top of the ranking leaderboards.

For Nationals, there will be about a month blocked out once per year in which Nationals will take place. From there, only the top players from each Nationals will be able to move on to Worlds. The three Nationals that will qualify players for the first Grand Archive Worlds event will be in North America, Southeast Asia, and Oceania. Each Nationals will have a minimum prize pool of $10,000 USD. For now, our plans for National rewards will be revealed at a later date, as we hope to make them a little bit more special and exciting.

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Now at the peak of our premier play line, our Worlds-level event is the main focal point of our entire event line. This event is for the players who have done the most to prove their skill in the Grand Archive TCG. Only by qualifying at Nationals-level events, players who reach Worlds have proven that they are ready and capable of competing to see who’s the best Grand Archive TCG player. Only 16 players will qualify for this event.

Worlds will typically take place after a short break from the Nationals period. We want for Worlds to be special and to be one of our most anticipated events once it’s announced. Our goal is to create an epic event not just for the players, but for all the spectators interested in seeing who comes out on top and stands at the peak.

The Grand Archive Worlds event will feature a minimum $50,000 USD prize pool. In addition a 1 of 1 prize card will be issued to the world champion. Due to the exclusive nature of this event, there will be an Ascent going on at the same time with both Path of Steel and Silver. This event will be the ultimate celebration of Grand Archive!

As we get closer to reaching worlds, we will share more news on what our plans are, and what some of the rewards will be as well! For now, we’d like to ask for your continued support and we look forward to seeing you begin your competitive journey in the Grand Archive TCG!

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That is it for our first look into our plans for the premier play program. We hope this excites you as much as it excites us and we are really looking forward to seeing what’s to come!