Azuki’s Special Collection Vol. 1 hits presale at $46.99 with a four-copy limit

In Brief:

• Presale orders opened for Azuki’s Special Collection Volume 1 — a limited folder containing 10 alternate-art cards — at $46.99, with each customer restricted to four, via tcg.azuki.com/presale.
• Six hours ahead of the 1 p.m. PT public launch, tournament competitors with at least one participation point logged in the Azuki TCG app were able to order between 6 a.m. and noon PT on July 29.
• This marks the first standalone release since debut set Gates Awakened, which passed $1 million in direct presales and sent 800,000 packs to retail back in June.

Azuki has launched sales of Special Collection Volume 1, a limited-run folder that holds 10 alternate-art cards for $46.99, with a ceiling of four copies per buyer.

The product page sits at tcg.azuki.com/presale. Supplies are limited, every purchase is final, and orders ship inside 10 days, the store page states. Applicable duties and fees are billed automatically to buyers outside the United States — a step Azuki said smooths the customs process.

Competitors were served first. A private ordering window ran from 6 a.m. to noon PT on July 29 for anyone carrying one or more participation points in the Azuki TCG app. The rest of the audience had to hold off until 1 p.m. PT.

Points come from showing up

Simply entering tournaments earns participation points, win or lose. Check in, play a match, receive credit. Larger events hand out more. Final placement is tracked separately on a winner leaderboard, where bigger tournaments pay out more at every placement tier.

Each leaderboard updates once every 24 hours at midnight PST. The metric for tournament size is the number of players who check in and actually compete, not registrations. Qualification-only affairs such as nationals and invitationals use a different points scale.

Season 1 wraps in mid-2027 on a date Azuki says it will reveal down the line. At that point the company snapshots both leaderboards and mails rewards to whatever physical address is attached to the player’s app account. Any cash prize arrives as a check written to the registered player’s name, meaning a winner whose app name doesn’t match their legal name may be unable to deposit it. Cheating, operating multiple accounts or gaming the system to farm points are all grounds for disqualification, Azuki said, and stores caught colluding can lose access to the tournament organizer tool.

A second act after $1 million in presales

Preceding Volume 1 was Gates Awakened (AZK-01), whose presale began March 19. On April 13, Azuki Labs reported that the set had passed $1 million in direct presale revenue via its own storefront.

“The success of the presale is proof that players believe in what we’re building,” said Alex Xu, co-founder and CEO of Azuki, who goes by Zagabond. “This is just the beginning of what we are planning for the Azuki TCG.”

June 26 brought Gates Awakened to U.S. retail with 800,000 packs shipped through distributors GTS and PHD Games, with XYAB joining afterward. The set totals 148 cards. Booster displays list at a $119.99 MSRP for 24 packs of 12 cards apiece, and a case contains six boxes.

By rarity, that breaks down to four Leaders, four Gates, one IKZ resource, one IKZ token, 54 commons, 33 uncommons, 22 rares, 12 super rares, 15 regular alternate arts and two chase Portrait Rare alternate arts. There are also four starter decks at $12.99 apiece, each with 63 cards and eight foils, constructed around leaders Raizan, Shao, Zero and Bobu.

A typical match lasts roughly 20 minutes. Players bring a 50-card deck alongside a Leader, a Gate and 10 IKZ cards, then spend IKZ to put Entities, Spells and Weapons onto a two-row board made up of the Alley and the Garden. Victory comes from reducing the opposing Leader’s health to zero.

Organized play carries the weight

On March 10, Azuki pledged $100,000 in prizing for the first tournament season and appointed CoreTCG — an organizer with Yu-Gi-Oh! YCS events and Bandai Nationals on its résumé — as the game’s inaugural official tournament organizer.

“We’re building a game worth competing in, and that means putting real stakes behind it from day one,” Xu said at the time. “A $100,000 prize pool in our first season is our commitment to a great competitive scene.”

Earlier still, January saw Azuki host a 64-player invitational with a $10,000 prize pool, alongside recurring local tournaments in Los Angeles and New York. Four additional sets are planned across the next 18 months, according to Azuki Labs, with regionals slated for the fall, set two arriving later this year and an invitational in early 2027.

Graders and resellers move in

March saw CGC broaden its authentication, grading and encapsulation offerings to include the Azuki TCG. CGC Cards vice president Matt Quinn described the game as “unique in its premise and history” and said the company is giving current and future members of the Azuki community a way to have their cards certified and protected.

Within two days of the sale, listings for “Azuki TCG Promo Special Collection: Volume 1” appeared on eBay.

Azuki debuted in 2022 with a collection of over 10,000 anime-inspired characters illustrated by Arnold Tsang, previously character art director on Blizzard’s Overwatch and now Azuki’s chief creative officer. On the card game, Tim Guo is credited as creative director and Jon Chao — whose credits include Far Cry and Wild Rift — as game design lead. Head of print production Corey Lewis previously oversaw global print production for the Pokemon TCG.