In Brief:
- Peoria, Illinois will host the Garden Arena Midwest Regional on Oct. 24, with Top Cut Events named as host, Azuki TCG confirmed.
- Registration goes live Aug. 23 at 9 a.m. PST, 11 a.m. CDT and noon EST.
- This is stop number two in a circuit where a serialized Raizan card goes to the top eight and the top 16 punch tickets to the 2027 Azuki Invitational.
Oct. 24 is the date Azuki TCG has locked in for its second Garden Arena regional, which lands in Peoria, Illinois under the direction of Top Cut Events. Players can start signing up when the link opens Aug. 23 at 9 a.m. PST, 11 a.m. CDT and noon EST.
No venue, entry fee or player cap was included in the announcement.
The Garden is heading to Peoria for the next Azuki TCG Regional.
Whether you’re chasing the serial Raizan prize card or sitting down for your first match, you’re welcome at the tournament.
Registration opens Sunday. Set a reminder and come play!@AzukiView on X ↗
Azuki’s tournament calendar hasn’t featured Top Cut Events before now. The opener was handled by CoreTCG, which became the game’s first official tournament organizer back in March, the same month Azuki put $100,000 behind Season 1 prizing. Peoria is familiar ground for Top Cut, which has staged One Piece Card Game regionals in the city, among them a two-day event in June.
What happened at the first one
The Pasadena Convention Center hosted Garden Arena One on Aug. 15, in Ballrooms ABCD at 300 E. Green St. A 256-player ceiling was set at first, but Azuki lifted it once sign-ups sold out and put registration back online July 22 at 10 a.m. PDT. On the day itself, roughly 320 players took part.
On the line was $10,000 in cash, alongside stamped prize cards, Seasonal Points and 16 invitations to the 2027 Azuki Invitational.
The structure ran eight rounds of Swiss until a single undefeated player remained, followed by a three-round top cut to settle the standings from first through eighth. Swiss play was best-of-one.
The Raizan card
A serialized Raizan card goes to each of the top eight at a Garden Arena regional. Tournament stamps and textured foiling are features of the prize cards.
The pitch from Azuki’s main account was aimed at newcomers and grinders alike. “Whether you’re chasing the serial Raizan prize card or sitting down for your first match, you’re welcome at the tournament,” the account said.
Should a qualifying player already hold an Invitational spot, that slot rolls down the standings.
Points and the season
Two leaderboards inside the Azuki TCG app draw from every sanctioned tournament. Attendance drives one of them, with points scaled to the size of the event; the other is based on where a player finishes. Each updates once daily at midnight PST, and the size figure is drawn from players who check in and actually play, not from the registration count.
The finish line for Season 1 is mid-2027, with prize cards, product and cash going to those who top the leaderboards.
A ban landed three days after the opener
Rushfire Gate was banned by Azuki as of Aug. 18 at 12:01 a.m. PT. Because the card is shut out of tournaments held under the organized play program, Peoria becomes the first regional contested without it.
Alex Xu, CEO of Azuki and known as Zagabond, described the move as a considered one, saying bans aren’t something the company anticipates doing frequently — but that it will act decisively when the situation calls for it.
Background
Gates Awakened, listed under the code AZK-01, reached hobby retail on June 26 priced at $119.99 for a booster display and $12.99 for a starter deck. There are 148 cards in the set, and roughly 800,000 packs shipped for launch.
Ahead of release, presales through Azuki’s own storefront topped $1 million, a milestone Azuki Labs made public on April 13.
Much of the talent behind the game came from outside crypto. Overwatch’s original character roster designer, Arnold Tsang, handles art direction, while creative director Tim Guo worked as a concept artist on the same team. Game design is led by Jon Chao, whose credits include Far Cry at Ubisoft and League of Legends: Wild Rift at Riot, and head of print production Corey Lewis comes from a role overseeing global print production for the Pokémon TCG.
A second set is in production and slated for late 2026.
When CoreTCG came aboard in March, its director of sales, Vigen, said the game “immediately stood out” across card design, product quality, prizing and competitive gameplay. Xu was more direct at the time: “We’re building a game worth competing in.”