Elestrals is launching our fifth series of in-store Organized Play and we have a ton of information to share with you about our evolving structure. We’re doubling down on our investment in local play this year and finding more ways to reward our dedicated community. This article will have all the details you need to understand how Play systems will work in Sunstrike and beyond.
Before we dive into the numbers, we want to make sure we’re clear - the only thing you need to do is play. There are a lot of systems here, but they’re meant to work behind the scenes automatically to make life easy for you, your local game store, and the community at large. If you routinely attend locals and/or play in official online events, that’s what really matters. However, if you love understanding all the different levels of things, you’re in the right place.
EVENT TYPES
Let’s break down the event lineup:
Casual Play and Weekly Play are the routine weekly events that you should see at your LGS, while the Prerelease, Set Celebration, and Store Championship events are the three seasonal events that will run with every Elestrals TCG expansion.
- Weekly Play will be listed as “League” in the Play Network. This is meant to be the main event type for your routine weekly locals and it should comply with the current Elestrals format, including set release dates and the current banlist. These events reward points towards seasonal systems (outlined below) as well as Caster Coins that can be used for discounts on the Elestrals shop.
- Prerelease, Set Celebration, and Store Championship will also count as League level events and will also reward points towards seasonal systems outlined below.
- Casual Play will be listed as “Club”. These events are fully casual and can be played with any format that the store and players wish to run!
- Premier events are our larger events such as Elestrals Opens, Store Opens, and our Online Premiers.
SEASONAL EVENTS
Each Organized Play season will run alongside the format change with each new Elestrals TCG expansion.
- You can plan on the Prerelease kicking off the new season with a sealed format event where players can get their hands on the new cards.
- ~3-4 weeks after the Prerelease, stores will be able to run a Set Celebration event as an elevated casual experience. The format will have special restrictions to encourage players to experience fun new decks without the need for an expansive collection. Anyone who plays in a Prerelease should be able to come back to this event and have a good time. This event also awards a small fixed amount of Qualifier Points for entry.
- (Approximately) 4 weeks after the Set Celebration, the Store Championship window will open. These are competitive events that can award up to 75 Qualifier Points and build towards the next World Championships.
All of these events have amazing LGS-exclusive goodies, including promo cards and playmats! Many of these rewards will have the new Gem Frame design, which is only available on cards earned at the local level.
The Qualifier Points mentioned above are very important for competitors that wish to qualify and attend the 2027 Elestrals World Championships.
PLAY REWARDS
Beyond the three cornerstone events per season, we track all sorts of stuff to reward our engaged players and stores. We’re doing this multiple ways!
- Divine Favor points track and reward your play during a season
- Folk Hero points track and reward your play at individual stores
- Store Levels are rewards for entire communities at a Local Game Store
All of these systems and points are automatically tracked - there is no need for any manual tracking, either by players or by stores. Let’s go through it all!
DIVINE FAVOR - GLOBAL SEASON POINTS
Divine Favor points are earned from any event at the League level or higher AND from Elestrals Webcam Casuals specifically. These points take all of your events combined and are not separated by location. The points are broken down as follows:
| Event | Points |
| Any League Event - Entry | 100 Divine Favor points* |
| Any League Event - Match Win | 20 Divine Favor points (per match)* |
| Any Premier Event - Entry | 200 Divine Favor points |
| Any Premier Event - Match Win | 20 Divine Favor points (per match) |
| Elestrals Webcam Casual - Entry | 50 Divine Favor points |
- For any League Events that run with 2 or 3 players, 50 points will be awarded to each player for participating. The match win points will not apply.
- Points are awarded for players who complete 3 rounds of an applicable event. If the event is shorter than 3 rounds, points are awarded to all active players at the conclusion of the event.
At the end of a competitive season:
- Any player with 1600 Divine Favor points or more will receive an exclusive Marble Promo Card. (There is no maximum number of players that can earn this.)
- The Top 32 players on the Divine Favor leaderboard will each receive an additional Gold Marble version of the same Promo Card.
- 3rd Place will receive one (1) Booster Box (from the current set), 2nd Place will receive two (2) Booster Boxes, and 1st Place will receive three (3) Booster Boxes. These three players will also receive an Uncut Sheet of the latest Elestrals TCG expansion.
- All of these will be mailed directly to players (at no additional charge).
These point systems will take effect from April 1, 2026.
For the previous season of Divine Favor that ran during Divine Champions: Lifestream, point calculations were handled differently on our prior PlayNetwork system. As such, we’ll extend the Marble Promo Card to cover the Top 200 players on the Divine Favor leaderboard. And it looks like this:
FOLK HERO AND STORE LEVELS
Folk Hero points are very similar to Divine Favor, but they care about your play at individual local stores. (Again, nobody has to do anything manual to track these points - they are automatically handled by our Play Network.) The point calculations are exactly the same as Divine Favor:
| Event | Points |
| Any League Event - Entry | 100 Folk Hero points* |
| Any League Event - Match Win | 20 Folk Hero points (per match)* |
- For any League Events that run with 2 or 3 players, 50 points will be awarded to each player for participating. The match win points will not apply.
- Points are awarded for players who complete 3 rounds of an applicable event. If the event is shorter than 3 rounds, points are awarded to all active players at the conclusion of the event.
For any players who earn 800 Folk Hero points or more at any individual store, you will earn a Gem Frame Promo Card that will be sent to the store for you to claim. You can earn this at multiple stores in a single season as well! Here’s your promo for the *Divine Champions: Sunstrike* series:
For the Number 1 Player on the leaderboard at each store, you will receive this amazing Sulfury playmat:
But there’s more here! Store Levels are a crucial part of the Folk Hero system and will directly benefit both the players and the store for building up a local community.
- Any store that hosts our Organized Play events is a Rare Store. They’ll receive direct LGS support from Elestrals and will continue to carry our Tournament Packs for prizing.
- Any store that has 5 or more players with 800+ Folk Hero points at the end of the season will be a Holo Store!
- Folk Hero players at these stores will earn double the promo cards (two per person instead of one).
- The store will receive a free Booster Box (from the next expansion), which they can use it however they like (sell it, use it for prizing, do a draft, etc).
- The store will also receive official “Holo Store” branding to put on the wall and advertise their success.
- Any store that has 10 or more players with 800+ Folk Hero points at the end of the season will be a STELLAR STORE!
- Folk Hero players will receive triple the promos (three per person)!
- The store will receive TWO Free Booster Boxes (from the next expansion).
- The store will receive official “Stellar Store” branding and an Uncut Sheet to display.
- We’ll also provide the store with exclusive “Winner’s Packs” - only one (1) per week will be distributed to the winner of locals! These will only be found at Stellar Stores. The contents of these packs will be covered as we get closer to their release… but they’ll be pretty awesome.
We’ll automatically track and evaluate these numbers through the entirety of Sunstrike. We’ll also provide an update to stores both in the middle and at the end of the competitive season.
We’ve done the heavy lifting so you don't have to. Whether you’re playing from home on webcam or at your favorite store, our automated systems ensure every win is counted, and every reward is earned. Dive into the Play Network to track your progress at a glance, and if you need a question answered, our team is ready to help in the Official Elestrals Discord. Just show up, sign in, and play!
