These are indeed tournaments with pretty big prizes!
Over the weekend, the tournament structure for Disney Lorcana in China was announced on their official Wechat account, including a brand new “Big Prize Tournament”!
Road to Worlds
First up, we have the path that China players will get to take part in the World Championship!
* Note: The right image shows my translations and not the actual event name.
Based on the info, there will be 2 routes for China’s Illumineers to make their way to Worlds, the “Big Prize” tournaments and Challenge tournament!
Both of these events will have qualifier events, where players can obtain byes by placing in the qualifier events.
No further details are provided for China’s Challenge events but here is what is shared for the Big Prize tournaments!
Big Prize tournament qualifiers info
Tournaments are not shared yet for the main “Big Prize” tournaments, but we have the qualifier information!
There will be 2 different levels of qualifiers organized, including a store qualifier tier, and a city tier.
Currently, 30 stores have been confirmed to be hosting the store qualifier events, starting from March 22, 2025.
Store Tier Qualifier details:
Dates: March 22 ~ March 30
Location: 30 stores
Entry: 50 RMB
Players: 32 ~ 64 players (Maximum of 64 players. Event will be cancelled if below 32 players participate.
As for the city tier, 2 events have been confirmed, though the exact location is currently unannounced.
City Tier Qualifier details:
Dates: March 29 ~ March 30
Location: Shanghai & Tianjin (Exact address unannounced)
Entry: 50 RMB
Players: Maximum of 128 players
Aside from the qualifier, there will be other activities at the city tier qualifiers, such as themed deck tournaments and more. Details to be announced on their socials at a later date.
Registration for both start from March 14, and will have to be done via their WeChat mini app.
Qualifier format
Swiss rounds will be conducted using 2 game matches (45 mins).
Points calculated are similar, with draw matches giving 3 points to both players, and a match win giving 7 points to the winner.
6 rounds will be conducted for store tier qualifiers while 7 round swiss will be held for city tier qualifiers. The event will last 2 days for the city tier qualifiers, day 1 being swiss rounds and the day 2 being the top cut.
Big Prize tournament prizes
Finally, details on the qualifier prizes!
Door gift wise, all participants will receive a common promo Chinese Dragon Fire!
Prizes for the event includes lots of lovely promo cards including
All promos given at the qualifier events are only available in common.
With the different amount of maximum players, both events have varying prizes from the champion to top 8.
That said, the champion of both the city and store tier qualifiers will receive a common version of all 3 listed promo cards, along with guaranteed entry and byes for the main “Big Prize” tournament.
With the Lorcana Grand Prix announced in Japan, it’s exciting to see the tournament circuit also commence for Mainland China!
With that said, this announcement of the circuit basically confirms that China (and most likely Japan) Illumineers will only be getting to take part in the next World Championship event, likely set for 2026.
China’s “Big Prize” tournaments and Japan’s Grand Prix events are both commencing from end March, which means they will be playing with only cards from set 1 and set 2. Who else is interested in taking part in a tournament where only these 2 sets are legal again? I’m definitely interested!
