In Brief:
- Koin Games’ Origins TCG is part of Steam Next Fest, which opened Oct. 19, and is running ranked mode and the $10,000 Crimson Cup through its free demo.
- Demo 2.0 adds custom deckbuilding, five new decks and more than 70 new cards.
- The studio said its collector ecosystem, with digitally graded cards players can trade, is launching soon after the festival.
Origins TCG went live in Steam Next Fest on Monday. Koin Games is putting ranked play, a $10,000 tournament and the largest update to its free demo so far in front of the festival’s audience.
“Steam Next Fest is live and Origins is part of it,” the team said in a post on X. The post listed three selling points: “A free TCG with no pay-to-win,” “Cards you can actually own and trade” and “7-minute matches, but still deep strategy.”
Steam Next Fest is live and Origins is part of it
– A free TCG with no pay-to-win
– Cards you can actually own and trade
– 7-minute matches, but still deep strategy
The festival runs Oct. 19 to Oct. 26.
Ranked and the Crimson Cup
Ranked mode switched on when Next Fest started, with exclusive rewards for players who climb the ladder. Koin Games added the mode in an Oct. 15 update. That patch also brought a new home screen with playmat visuals, made missions completable in PvE or PvP and let players see their opponent’s mulligan. The studio said it fixed about 100 bugs.
The Crimson Cup has a $10,000 prize pool split between cash, collectibles and exclusive promo cards. Koin Games said the promo cards won’t be re-released. The pool also includes digital packs and Alpha Edition product.
Players enter through the official Origins TCG Discord and compete on the free Steam demo. Qualifiers run through the week, with playoffs and finals to be streamed on Twitch.
The tournament uses a Conquest format. Each player brings three decks, and each deck needs a different Legendary. Earlier rounds are best-of-three and the grand final is best-of-five. Decklists stay hidden until the top four.
Koin Games disabled seven locations it called RNG-heavy for tournament play. It also launched a Refer a Friend program, which gives packs to both players and the people they recruit.
What’s in Demo 2.0
The festival build is the biggest change to the demo since it released July 15. It adds five new decks and more than 70 new cards.
Players can now build their own decks for the first time instead of picking preset lists. A deck has 25 cards: one Legendary plus 12 unique cards, each played as two copies. Progress carries over from earlier playtests.
Matches run about seven minutes. Both players act on every turn, and games take place across three lanes, each with its own conditions. The cast is built from historical and literary figures, including Mulan, Robin Hood, the Queen of Hearts and Winnie-the-Pooh, in what Koin Games describes as an original world.
The studio pitches the game as play like Hearthstone and Snap, rip and collect like Pokemon and trade like Counter-Strike.
The economy
Koin Games said every player can earn all the cards needed for competitive decks for free. “Spending money will never unlock stronger cards or give you an advantage in gameplay,” the Steam page says.
Monetization rests on limited edition packs, hand-drawn cosmetic variants and digitally graded cards. Players can trade them in a marketplace. The studio says those cards are prized “for their artistry and rarity, not their gameplay power.”
The Steam page doesn’t mention blockchain or NFTs.
On Oct. 14 the team said on X that “The Origins TCG collector ecosystem is launching soon after Steam Next Fest.” That rollout covers sealed product, limited sets, digital grading and tournament cards. The same post said the playtest had passed 100,000 matches in two months.
Road to Early Access
Origins TCG is listed on Steam for a Q4 2026 Early Access release. Koin Games said it’s aiming to leave Early Access around March 17, 2027, and that the game will stay free to play during and after that period.
The demo has a Very Positive rating on Steam, with 95% of its 197 user reviews positive.
“We believe a competitive trading card game is strongest when it grows alongside its players,” Koin Games said on the store page.
