Announcing the KARDS World Championship 2024
17 days ago
Attention, soldiers!
We are thrilled to announce the KARDS 2024 World Championship!
The KARDS World Championship is the biggest eSports event of the year in KARDS. It’s open for anyone interested and somewhat skilled in competitive gameplay - read on for all the details!
Tournament Stages and Formats
The KARDS World Championship is split into three main stages, conducted from September to December 2024. To become the World Champion, you must be successful in these stages, starting with the open in-game qualifiers and ending with the final 16 participants playing for the crown and title of KARDS World Champion 2024.
The first place of each seasonal in-game ladder 2024 (up to August) and all Officer Club Championship (OCC: Clash) tournaments from January 2024 and up to November 2024 are pre-qualified to participate in Stage 2 (the top 128 player Knockout stage) of the World Championship. Also pre-qualified are the top 4 players from last year’s World Championship.
Stage 1: Open Qualifiers
The open in-game qualifiers are held in two sections (A and B) between September and November and are open for anyone with rank 3 (Lieutenant General) or better to enter. Join one (or both if needed) of the open qualifiers available through the KARDS client during weekends between September 28th and November 3rd to qualify for the second stage of the tournament.
The top 57 players from each of the two qualifiers will advance to the Knockout Stage.
The top 500 players in each of the open qualifiers also earn the exclusive KARDS 2024 World Championship card back.
Each qualifier is held on Saturday and Sunday over the course of three consecutive weekends (i.e. 6 sessions in each). Each player needs to successfully complete a minimum of 3 out of the 6 sessions to post a legal qualifier score. Each session lasts for 4 hours, during which participating players have to complete at least 9 games to successfully complete the qualification session. Note that only the first 9 games are counted towards your score - any additional games after the required games can be important for tiebreakers, so we do recommend playing a few extra games during the sessions to improve your chances in tiebreakers.
For each win a player receives 5 points for the qualification ladder, for each loss a player receives 1 point. A player’s final score is the combined total score from their best 3 sessions out of 6 in the qualifier in question.
Stage 2: Top 128 player Knockout Stage
Players qualified through the in-game open qualifiers and pre-qualified players are drawn into a swiss-format tournament with seven rounds to determine the top 16 players. This tournament will take place November 23rd and 24th and is organized out-of-client.
The first 3 rounds take place on November 23rd, the remaining 4 rounds on November 24th. Each round consists of best-of-three series in conquest (meaning that any deck that wins cannot be selected again for the remainder of that series). No deck bans at this stage.
Players at this stage playing at least one round will receive 300 Diamonds as a prize.
The top 16 players from the Knockout stage will proceed to the Grand Finals of the World Championship.
Stage 3: The Grand Finals
On December 14th and 15th, the sixteen finalists from the Knockout stage will battle for the title of the KARDS 2024 World Champion! The Grand Finals take place online covered by a full broadcast.
On December 14th, the finalists will play in a single-elimination, best-of-five knockout tournament. The finalists need to bring four decks, all from different nations; with one deck ban. The first day has two rounds to determine the final four, the second day is fully dedicated to the final four players fighting for the crown and top spot.
As in previous years, the prize pool is $12 000 shared amongst the competing top players.
This two-day event will be live streamed on the KARDS Twitch, YouTube and Huya channels, as well as Bilibili.
Prizes
Participating in the World Championship at any stage is a fun and exciting experience - but of course, we also want to provide our brave participants with some extra goodies!
The rewards for the KARDS 2024 World Championship are:
The top 500 players in each qualifying section (A and B) in the Open Qualifier for the World Championship will receive the exclusive KARDS 2024 World Championship card back.
Every player that participates in the top 128 player Knockout Stage will receive 300 diamonds to spend on anything they desire in the in-game shop.
The competing sixteen finalists of the Grand Finals will fight for their share of the 12,000 USD prize pool.
Prepare Your Forces!
With the first set of qualifiers right around the corner in September, now is the time to start preparing your forces for battle. Start thinking about what types of decks you want to bring and what cards you need to get to be in fighting shape to take on the world's best players!
We will continue to publish more details on the KARDS 2024 World Championship in the coming weeks and months.
Check regularly for updates - join us on Discord and follow us on Twitch, Youtube, Facebook, and X to make sure you don’t miss any of the action!