The 32 finalists from regional and online Qualifiers will compete in the Altered World Championship to be held at Le White in Paris, France, Oct. 17-19, according to an official post. Along with other side events and tournaments, the event will debut new formats and be the first place to see the World Faction Champion rewards.

Tournament play and rules

All released sets, from Beyond the Gates to Skybound Odyssey (releasing two weeks earlier Oct. 3) will be legal for all matches during the event.

The weekend will start off with the Last Chance Qualifiers, where eight pods of 128 players each will compete in a best-of-three, single-elimination format to claim one of the remaining eight spots in the World Championship Finals. Each pod will secure a place for a single player, with the morning session and afternoon session providing four each.

The Finals themselves will begin with the Group Stage event, where the 32 finalists will be randomly sorted into eight groups of four players. Each player faces off against the other three players in their group in a best-of-three format.

The top two players from each group will move on to the Top 16 winner-loser bracket of the Finals (with specific tiebreaker rules coming before the tournament). All players will start in the winner’s bracket and remain there while they continue to win. When a player loses a match in the winner’s bracket, they move to the loser’s bracket. Losing in the loser’s bracket results in definitive elimination from the tournament.

That bracket will continue Sunday morning, leading up to a Grand Final played in a best-of-three format, where the first Altered World Champion will be named. The last player remaining in the winner’s bracket faces the final player in the loser’s bracket for the championship. The Finals will begin with a best-of-three match. If the player from the winner’s bracket loses, a second best-of-three match will be played, as both players will then have one tournament loss each. The winner will then be named the champion.

The World Championship Finals brackets will be played using the Conquest format, in which each player constructs a total of three decks (each from a different faction) to bring to the match. The decklists will be submitted and locked before the matches begin, and all matches will be played with an open decklist. During the best-of-three format, players each simultaneously ban one of their opponent’s decks before choosing their own. If a player wins a match with one of their decks, it is considered “validated” and cannot be used again for the rest of the match. The winning player must rotate to of their remaining decks, while the losing player can choose to stick with the same deck or switch to another.

The full rewards for the top players are still yet to be revealed, but new alternate-art cards for the flagship hero of each faction will be available to the top ranking players as the Faction Heralds. The grand champion begins by choosing one of the three factions they played, with the remaining choices going to players based on performance. All of the players will have already received all of the rewards provided in the Qualifier events.

Other events, finalists

Aside from the main tournament events, there will be other side events available as well, such as a Constructed 3v3 tournament format, carried on from its success at Lille. Players team up with two friends, split three factions and then build decks without allowing any cards to cross over.

One of the new formats is a Draft 2v2 limited event, alongside a Tumult Echoes event focused on the Trial by Frost Tumult. There will also be a lore event which allows players to win matches to vote for the future they envision for the city. There will be a SKY sealed format for the new set, and boss battles with both Sweorkie and Lokinox. A special tournament geared toward younger players, Kodama Academy, will also be available.

Seven of the potential 32 finalists have already been chosen with Qualifiers at Zoetermeer, The Netherlands; Lille, France; Essen, Germany; and Dallas, Texas. Another will be named through the Aug. 16-17 European-focused online Board Game Arena Qualifier, which is open to players worldwide, regardless of nationality.