Buckle up Travellers, Genshin Impact has announced its first official international tournament series in 2023, and it’s for its strategic card game mode, Genius Invokation TCG.

Called “Astra Carnival: The Prince Cup”, the tournament will formally open in the Southeast Asia/Hong Kong/Macao/Taiwan (SEA/HK/MO/TW) region this August.

Genius Invokation TCG is a trading card game (which is what TCG stands for) where you can battle other characters in the game or fellow players.

While Genius Invokation TCG might not be the favourite game mode of some players, the total cash prize of US$37,000 for our region might have you thinking twice. (The global prize pool is US$270,000.)

Here’s how to participate

For the regional tournament, Genshin Impact will be inviting 32 contenders from the Cat’s Tail Gathering S3 and Wild Card to partake in online qualification matches.

Image Credit: Astra Carnival

Authorised by HoYoverse, Cat’s Tail Gathering is a Genius Invokation TCG competition that the Genshin Impact Tavern community has been hosting.

During the week-long qualifiers, participants will match with other contenders. Winners will accumulate points over the course of the competition, and the top 16 will enter the elimination tournament to compete for the championship and the grand prizes.

Cat’s Tail Gathering S3 will be open for registration on July 10.

Those who miss out on the Cat’s Tail Gathering will be able to partake in the Wild Card event, which will be open for registration for players in the SEA/HK/MO/TW region on August 26.

To be specific, 24 players will be chosen from the Cat’s Tail Gathering S3, while 8 will be chosen from Wild Card. These numbers are considered variables though, as they might change in accordance with whether Cat’s Tail Gathering S3 contenders actually want to participate in Astra Carnival: The Prince Cup.

To stay tuned for the following steps or updates on the tourney, players can join the Genshin Impact Tavern Discord group. There are currently no registration forms or the like yet, at the time of writing.

This regional competition is only open to players on the Asia server, so if you’re playing on a different one, be sure to check the correct dates for your respective server. You’ll also need to be present in SEA/HK/MO/TW during the duration of the tournament.

It will be coming to Malaysia

The 32 contenders who are selected for the qualifier matches will be notified via Discord.

After the qualifiers, the best eight players will be invited to participate in the offline championship matches which will be hosted in our very own home country of Malaysia.

The matches will be broadcasted live on the official Astra Carnival Twitter, YouTube, Twitch, and TikTok channels.

The finals for our region are slated to happen on September 17, 2023, a Sunday.

Image Credit: Astra Carnival

All travel expenses incurred by the participants heading to the offline tournament will be covered by the official Genshin Impact team.

The team hasn’t clarified what amount the ultimate champion will be walking away with, whether it’ll be the entirety of the US$37,000 prize pool or just a slice of it.

In any case, we’re sure you’ll have quite a chunk of money to spend on some Primogems.  

Other than the prizes, top regional candidates as well as top community tournament candidates may also get invited to the invitationals and take part in exhibition games for the international audience.

Due to game mechanics-related restrictions, though, Genshin Impact is unable to provide cross-server support, so until some kind of workaround is found, we won’t be seeing a truly international tournament that’s open for all.

Nonetheless, this is certainly a big affair for the overall Genshin Impact community, and who knows, you might just see us in the arena.

Learn more about Genshin Impact’s Astra Carnival: The Prince Cup here.

Read other articles we’ve written about gaming here.

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Featured Image Credit: Genshin Impact