Azuki TCG’s next Garden Arena regional hits Peoria on Oct. 24, with a new organizer running it

In Brief:

• Azuki TCG announced the Garden Arena Midwest Regional for Oct. 24 in Peoria, Illinois, hosted by Top Cut Events.
• The sign-up link drops Aug. 23 at 9 a.m. PST, 11 a.m. CDT and noon EST.
• It’s the second stop in a series that hands the top eight a serialized Raizan card and sends the top 16 to the 2027 Azuki Invitational.

Azuki TCG set its second Garden Arena regional for Oct. 24 in Peoria, Illinois, with Top Cut Events running the tournament. The sign-up link goes live Aug. 23 at 9 a.m. PST, 11 a.m. CDT and noon EST.

The announcement didn’t name a venue, an entry fee or a player cap.

Top Cut Events is a new name on the Azuki calendar. CoreTCG ran the series opener and was named the game’s first official tournament organizer in March, when Azuki committed $100,000 to Season 1 prizing. Top Cut has run One Piece Card Game regionals in Peoria, including a two-day event there in June.

What happened at the first one

Garden Arena One ran Aug. 15 at the Pasadena Convention Center, Ballrooms ABCD, at 300 E. Green St. Azuki initially capped the field at 256 players, then raised it after sign-ups sold out, reopening registration July 22 at 10 a.m. PDT. Roughly 320 players competed on the day.

The pot was $10,000 in cash, stamped prize cards, Seasonal Points and 16 invitations to the 2027 Azuki Invitational.

Format was eight rounds of Swiss until one player stood undefeated, then three rounds of top cut to sort out first through eighth. Swiss matches were best-of-one.

The Raizan card

Top eight finishers at a Garden Arena regional receive a serialized Raizan card. Prize cards carry tournament stamps and textured foiling.

Azuki’s main account pitched the Peoria event to both ends of the player base. “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.

Invitational spots pass down when a qualifying player has already locked one in.

Points and the season

Every sanctioned tournament feeds two leaderboards tracked in the Azuki TCG app. One awards points for showing up, scaled to tournament size. The other awards points on final placement. Both refresh once a day at midnight PST, and tournament size counts players who check in and play rather than players who registered.

Season 1 ends in mid-2027. Top finishers on the leaderboards get prize cards, product and cash.

A ban landed three days after the opener

Azuki banned Rushfire Gate effective Aug. 18 at 12:01 a.m. PT. The card is barred from tournaments run through the organized play program, which makes Peoria the first regional played without it.

Alex Xu, CEO of Azuki and known as Zagabond, framed the decision as a deliberate one, saying the company doesn’t expect to ban cards often but will act decisively when it does.

Background

Gates Awakened, cataloged as AZK-01, shipped to hobby retail June 26 at $119.99 per booster display and $12.99 per starter deck. The set runs 148 cards. About 800,000 packs went out for launch.

Presales crossed $1 million through Azuki’s own storefront before release, a figure Azuki Labs announced April 13.

The design bench is stacked with people from outside the crypto world. Art direction comes from Arnold Tsang, who designed the original character roster for Overwatch. Creative director Tim Guo was a concept artist on that team. Jon Chao, who worked on Far Cry at Ubisoft and League of Legends: Wild Rift at Riot, leads game design, and head of print production Corey Lewis previously managed global print production for the Pokémon TCG.

Set 2 is in production for late 2026.

Vigen, director of sales at CoreTCG, said the game “immediately stood out” on card design, product quality, prizing and competitive gameplay when the organizer signed on in March. Xu put it more bluntly at the time: “We’re building a game worth competing in.”