Genius Invokation TCG duelists, get your deck ready, because Astra Carnival is coming back better and grander than before!
Genshin Impact developer HoYoverse announced on Wednesday (3 April) the return of Astra Carnival: The Prince Cup for a second season this May, where aspiring duelists can go head to head in a variety of challenges to come out as the champion!
Astra Carnival: The Prince Cup will have two major competition zones, each catered towards two sections of the globe. For us Asians, we fall under the Pacific competition zone, which will cater to Asia, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan.
The prize pool for both competition zones will each amount to US$60,000, with the champion getting the US$16,000 grand prize. Players who finish within the Top 32 will also get cash prizes.
The competition zones will have three stages for players to participate in: Wildcard, Regular Season, and Knockout Stage.
The Wildcard Stage will group players based on region and language who will play matches simultaneously. The matches will follow a best-of-three (BO3) elimination format, after which winners from this pool will once again be matched randomly to decide the Top 8 groups to advance to the Regular Season under a BO3 Swiss system format.
The Wildcard Stage is now open for sign-ups, and will occur from 15 May to 19 May for the Pacific competition zone.
The Regular Season will have the Top 8 groups as well as 24 competitors chosen from the Cat’s Tail Gathering selection competition form the Top 32. The Top 32 will then be randomly divided into groups of 4 and will undergo approximately 5 weeks of matches to decide the Top 8 to enter the final Knockout Stage.
The Regular Season will occur from June to July, specific dates are yet to be announced.
The Knockout Stage, which will decide the Genius Invokation TCG champion of the year, will have the victorious Top 8 duel each other in a series of offline BO5 double eliminations matches. The final match will end in a BO7 where the best of the best will be crowned the winner (sorry, Cyno!).
The Knockout Stage will occur on August, specific date is yet to be announced.
To join the competition, players must have player level 7, at least 15 character cards, and must be 18-years old or older. Players in the Pacific competition zone can sign up for the Wildcard Stage here.
Genshin Impact is currently in the second half of version 4.5, which featured the release of a new 5-star character in Chiori, reruns for the 5-star characters Arataki Itto, Neuvillette, and Kaedehara Kazuha, as well as the new Chronicled Wish banner system.
The second half of version 4.5 features a double rerun banner for Neuvillette and Kazuha. If you’re torn on whether you should pull on this banner or not, we can help you decide.
After version 4.5 comes version 4.6 in April, which will see the long-awaited debut of the fan-favourite Fatui Harbinger Arlecchino as a playable character.
Yan Ku is a full-time dog parent, part-time (gacha) gamer, and part-time writer.
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