Hello Casters! We’re here to share some details around Organized Play in the coming months after the 2026 Elestrals World Championships. Organized Play is ascending in the 2026-2027 competitive season, and while we’ll have lots of exciting announcements to share at Worlds, we wanted to get some dates and times in front of you beforehand so you can make plans to compete.
Organized Play: Season 5 and the Road to Worlds 2027 both begin on April 1st, 2026. Players will begin accumulating new Qualifier Points (QP), Divine Favor, and other seasonal benefits starting on this date.
Let’s cover some important changes to how QP will work this year. (These are not *all* the changes to QP-awarding events, but they cover the major things that are important to know in advance.)
Travel Stipend
Travel Stipends will continue to be provided for travel to the 2027 World Championships; however, instead of a relative cut-off, there will now be qualification thresholds to reach (with no maximum number of players).
| Required Qualifier Points | Travel Stipend Provided |
| 500 QP | $500 USD |
| 1000 QP | $1000 USD |
Updates to Store Regionals
Store Regional events will now be known as Store Championships. They will still provide QP to players; however, (from April 1, 2026) players can only earn QP from a single event per set expansion.
Qualifier Points will be awarded for the single highest placement each player achieves over the course of the Store Championship window.
For example, if a player competes in two Store Championship events, earning 10th Place in the first event, and getting 1st Place in the second event, they will only earn the 75 Qualifier Points from their 1st Place finish.
New to the upcoming Sunstrike Store Championships, all players will be able to collect an exclusive promo card at the end of the event for participating. (More details and information on the upcoming Sunstrike Store Championships will be shared at a later date.) Players are welcome to compete in as many Store Championships as they wish to earn more participation promo cards and reach a higher final placement.
Upcoming Premier and Open Events
You may notice some adjustments to our Online Webcam Premier schedule. For the launch of this new competitive season, we’re experimenting with alternate days of the weekend and start times to see if we can capture players who may have been unable to attend our typical Saturday at 10 AM ET events. (For now, we’re only sharing the specific times and dates for the first four Premiers. We’ll be monitoring community feedback before making firm plans for further Premiers.)
Finally, we’re using this opportunity to soft-announce our partnership with Card Party! We’ll have a significant presence at these awesome shows across the United States in 2026, and each one will have an attached Premier-level Open event! This means the Sunstrike format will have three in-person events for competition.
- These Card Party events will have a 64 player cap.
- Qualifier Points will be awarded at the same levels as an Elestrals TCG Store Open.
- There will be an exclusive promo card and a Top Cut prize card unique to the Card Party Open events! (This is the same card at all three events.)
- This will be in addition to the per-event promo card that Card Party attendees will receive at each show this season.
- These events will run over two days to adapt to the Card Party schedule - Swiss will be on Saturday, and Top 8 will be on Sunday.
- A Card Party attendance badge will be required to enter the event, however these will be offered at half price to all Elestrals players.
- The cost to participate in the tournament will be lower than a typical Webcam Premier.
- If a player with a single-day Saturday badge makes Top Cut, they will be accommodated with access to the venue and tournament on Sunday at no additional cost.
More details about the three Card Party Open events will be shared soon.
Now for the Premier events. This is a list of all Premiers, Opens, and store cycle windows from **April 2026 to July 2026**. (As a quick note, there are three Webcam Premiers taking place before the release of Divine Champions—Sunstrike.) These events will be in the Lifestream format, however, we are planning on a small temporary adjustment to the competitive format until the release of Sunstrike to inject a little freshness into the metagame. These events will also award Brand New prizing, including Sunstrike Booster Packs, Series 3 Premier Packs, as well as all-new Prize Cards and Playmats. More details on all of this will come soon!
April 2026
- Webcam Premier - Saturday, April 4th, 10am EDT
- Webcam Premier - Sunday, April 19th, 1pm EDT
May 2026
- Webcam Premier - Saturday, May 2nd, 1pm EDT
- LGS Pre-release window - Friday, May 15th to Sunday, May 24th
- Card Party Open #1 - Saturday, May 23rd to Sunday, May 24th (Sunstrike will be legal!)
- Webcam Premier - Sunday, May 31st, 10am EDT (first Sunstrike Premier Tournament!)
June 2026
- Set Celebration (formerly known as Set Championships) window - Friday, June 5th to Friday, June 26th
- Webcam Premier - Saturday, June 13th (Time TBD)
- Webcam Premier - Sunday, June 28th (Time TBD)
July 2026
- Webcam Premier - Saturday, July 11th (Time TBD)
- Store Championships window - Friday, July 10th to Thursday, July 30th
- Card Party Open #2 - Saturday, July 25th to Sunday, July 26th
There will be more Premiers in August 2026 (and beyond)! More details on these will be shared as we get closer.
We can’t wait to see everyone compete in the new Elestrals year!
