Finally, some Judge Rares.
Since the September announcement, we’ve been slowly rolling out and building Genesys, piece by piece, starting with Official Tournament Store (OTS) events and moving up to the Genesys Invitationals held at the Yu-Gi-Oh! Championship Series (YCS) events. Here’s what comes next!
February 2026: Genesys Proto-YCS (at the 300th YCS in Richmond, VA)
The Genesys Proto-YCS, to be held at the 300th YCS in Richmond, is an intermediate step between the Genesys Invitationals, and the full-fledged Genesys YCS events coming after.
The Proto-YCS will have no preliminary 8-player flights, and will instead be one big tournament held over two days, just like a YCS. Prizing will still be like the Invitationals, featuring retired YCS Prize Cards from yesteryear. As a mix of YCS tournament structure, but Invitational prizing, this is a hybrid, transitional event.
May 2026: YCS Columbus (Genesys AND Advanced Format)
We’ve been talking to lots of Duelists the last few months, and one thing that keeps coming up is that some folks are nervous about when a YCS does come to town, will it be the type of event that they prefer. Some people are excited about Genesys, and tell us, “When a YCS comes to my area, I hope it’s a Genesys YCS because I’d rather play in that.” But others say, “When a YCS comes to my area, I hope it’s still Advanced Format because I’d rather play in that.”
So, as a wise person once said: “Why don’t we do both?”
Moving forward, all YCS events in North America starting in May (and for Latin America, starting in October) will follow a “Big Top” philosophy, and have both events under one roof. And whether you play Advanced Format, or Genesys, our motto is “a YCS is a YCS”, so both events will have the same prizing, including the special prize cards (currently Anotherverse Stratios)! Starting with YCS Columbus (October for Latin America), Genesys events will switch from Invitational-style prizing to standard YCS prizing.
July 2026: Win a Trip to Jump Festa in Japan!
At the North America, Central America, and South America World Championship Qualifiers (WCQ) , we’ll hold an open Genesys tournament (same structure as a YCS), and the grand prizes for the Top 2 will be a trip to Japan that December to attend Jump Festa, the colossal yearly manga and anime celebration!
August 2026: “Big Top” Regionals/OTS Championships
After the current tournament year wraps up after the WCQ’s, Regional Qualifiers will start using the same “Big Top” model as YCS events, where you can come to a Regional and there will be an Advanced Format Regional, and a Genesys Regional, side-by-side. They’ll have the same prizing, and give invites to the matching WCQ event of your region. The same will be true for OTS Championship events, which will also be both Advanced Format and Genesys Format – play in whichever you want!
Genesys events will feed into the Genesys Championships (held at the WCQ’s), which will be invitation-only from these events. The grand prizes for the Top 2 at the Genesys Championship will again be a Jump Festa trip to Japan!
Winner’s Packs
Starting later this year, winners at events from the OTS level to the Regional level will start receiving special Winner’s Packs as prizes. Winner’s Packs contain emblazoned foil cards, like you saw in Battles of Legend: Monster Mayhem and the Limited Pack World Championship 2025.
Winner’s Pack cards are all emblazoned to match the type of event at which you won them. The ones from in-store tournaments (including OTS Championships) have the OTS logo emblazoned in the text box, and the ones from Regional tournaments have the Regional logo. There’s also a thank-you pack for judges, where the cards have an emblazoned Judge logo! All three packs use the same card pool, with just the logos being different, so you can play in an in-store event, at a Regional, or help with judging, and still work on building your emblazoned cards set no matter what you’re doing.
Winner’s Packs aren’t just for Genesys, by the way. Advanced Format events will have them, too!
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1 Comment
Literally the worst way you can go about this imo. Would much rather individual events for each format than splitting the playerbase at each regional and YCS.