Image: HoYoverse
Genshin Impact’s card game esports tournament returns for another season this year.
HoYoverse has announced the return of Astra Carnival: The Prince Cup, a tournament based on the game’s Genius Invokation trading card game. The event will return later this year with an updated competitive system and a total prize pool of $60,000 up for grabs per region. Anyone who registers for the Wild Card competition has a chance to qualify for the upcoming season, and receive bonus rewards like Primogems and an exclusive card back.
Astra Carnival: The Prince Cup’s new season starts this year
Astra Carnival: The Prince Cup’s next season of competition begins this year with a slightly different format than before. Players are going to be divided into Atlantic and Pacific Regional Tournaments, where they will encounter other elite players who will now be drawn from a broader pool of competitors. They will then compete for the championship title and, perhaps more enticingly, a share of the total prize pool of $60,000 per region.
This new season will have some continuity with previous Genius Invokation tournaments too. The first season of Astra Carnival: The Prince Cup was held last year, along with a community tournament called Cat’s Tail Gathering. The contestants of this year’s The Prince Cup Pacific and Atlantic will include Cat’s Tail Gathering’s top 24 players. Eight spots are up for grabs from Wild Card competitions, which gives players who didn’t have a chance to enter last year’s tournaments to get in this year.
The Wild Card competitions will run from April 26-28 for the Atlantic region, and May 17-19 for the Pacific region. All candidates will get 160 Primogems after the completion of their first match, but anyone who wins their first best-of-three game will get an exclusive in-game card back.
Once all the players qualifying for the Prince Cup have been set in stone, the real competition begins. They’ll need to battle their way into the Regular Season and the Knockout Stage thereafter. The Regular Season will divide 32 competitors into four groups to decide the Top 8 players. In the Knockout Stage, those Top 8 players will face off in a series of best-of-five double-elimination matches, with the final two competing in a best-of-seven to decide the tournament’s champion.
The Regular Season runs from May to June (Atlantic) and June to July (Pacific). The Knockout Stage will happen in July (Atlantic) and August (Pacific). All of these matches will be live streamed on the Genshin Impact social media channels, including YouTube. You can find more information on the tournament, as well as how to sign up for the Wild Card competitions, here.
