How to Qualify for the Gundam Card Game World Championships

Sixteen of the 22 Regionals on Bandai's World Championships 26-27 Season 2 calendar have now reached their dates: eleven by 20 September, then Düsseldorf, Milwaukee, Lille, Brisbane and Washington, DC through 31 October. The last six run from Utrecht on 7-8 November to Wakefield on 19-20 December 2026. If you want a seat at a Gundam Card Game Area Finals in January, the season is now counted in weekends.

Bandai does not put the route on one page. It is spread across a season overview, two Regionals pages, two Store Championship pages and two BANDAI CARD GAMES Fest pages, and they do not all agree with each other or with the Tournament Rules Manual. Here it is in one place: the three ways to earn an Area Finals invite in North America and Europe, why Latin America and Oceania need no invite at all, every qualifier still on the calendar, and how the formats differ between Level 1 and the Area Finals. Bandai has since published the Area Finals themselves, and the Area Finals 2027 guide covers their format, schedule and prizes in full.

How I checked

I first read the World Championships 26-27 pages on Bandai's English (US) site on 2 October 2026 - the season overview, Regionals Season 1 and Season 2, and Store Championships Season 1 and Season 2 - plus the BANDAI CARD GAMES Fest 26-27 pages for Orlando and London and their Gundam tournament listings on the Fest site. For precedent I read the World Championships 25-26 pages in Bandai's past-events archive. On 1 November I re-read the Regionals Season 2 page, the Store Championships Season 2 page, Bandai's new World Championships 26-27 Area Finals page and Comprehensive Rules Ver. 1.10.0. Format rules are checked against the Tournament Rules Manual (last updated 10 July 2025), the Sanctioned Tournament Floor Rules Ver. 1.1.0 and those Comprehensive Rules, and card text against the official card database.

This covers the four areas on Bandai's Regionals pages: North America, Europe, Latin America and Oceania. Japan and Asia are served by Bandai's other regional sites and are not covered here. Match clocks, tiebreakers, deck lists and the banned list are in the tournament rules guide; this piece is about the route, not the rules of each match.

The ladder, level by level

Two naming traps before going further. Bandai's overview calls the two halves of Level 1 "Wave 1 and Wave 2" in one paragraph and Season 1 and Season 2 everywhere else. They are the same thing, and top players from both progress to the same Area Finals.

The second trap matters more. The Tournament Rules Manual also numbers event tiers 1 to 3, the other way up. Its Level 1 is casual store play, Level 2 "Competitive" includes Store Championship events, and Level 3 "Professional" is the Championship series of Regionals, Nationals and World Championship events (section 3.2). So a Regional is World Championships Level 1 and manual Level 3, and when the manual says "Professional level", it means the Regional you are about to play.

Path one: finish top 16 at a Regional

Every Regional in North America and Europe gives an Area Finals invite to its Top 16. The line sits in both of Bandai's prize tables, the one for events of 512 players and above and the one for smaller events, so attendance does not change it. If someone in that 16 already holds an invite, Bandai's note says it is "passed down to the next highest ranking player". A Regional therefore produces up to 16 new invitees, not 16 invites that can land on the same people twice.

Bandai's two schedules list 11 Regionals in North America (six in Season 1, five in Season 2) and 14 in Europe (seven in each). At 16 apiece, that is 176 Regionals invitations for North America and 224 for Europe, before a single Store Championship or Last Chance Qualifier is counted. Bandai has not said how many players each Area Finals will seat, so those figures measure how wide the funnel is, not how crowded the room will be.

What is left after 31 October: one North American Regional (Newark on 6 December) and two European ones (Utrecht and Wakefield), which is 48 invites still to hand out through Top 16 finishes. Milwaukee and Washington, DC in North America and Düsseldorf and Lille in Europe have already reached their dates.

The Season 2 Regionals, October to December

Before October, eleven others had been played: Indianapolis at Gen Con (31 July), Rotterdam, Hurstville, Madrid, Mexico City, Auckland, Toronto, Melbourne, Bologna, Santiago and São Paulo (20 September). Gen Con's date sits a day before the "August - December" window the same page gives for Season 2, but Bandai lists it there; our Gen Con day two report has that event's entry details.

Each Season 2 Regional on the page is constructed, needs a TCG+ account, and registers through its organiser rather than through Bandai. Bandai's registration guideline opened December events from 27 September, so by that guideline every remaining Regional is already open for registration; the page warns that each organiser sets its own exact date and time.

Path two: win a Store Championship lottery, then the room

Store Championships Season 2 began on 1 November 2026 and runs to the 30th, in North America and Europe only, and you cannot walk in. Player applications opened in BANDAI TCG+ on 11 October, at 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern in North America and 5pm UTC in Europe. Bandai's wording is that "Participants will be automatically selected at random", with winners announced one week before each event. Stores applied by 13 September and heard by 30 September whether they were chosen; the event page does not name them.

Each event is best-of-one, 30 minutes plus 5, with no top cut, so the invites go off the final standings. How many depends on how many people actually play:

The bands have two cliffs. A 23-player Store Championship sends one player to the Area Finals and a 24-player one sends two; at 48 it jumps to four. Four invites among 48 players is one per 12. Bandai publishes no Regionals attendance, but its own prize tables split at 512 players, and the same Top 16 at a 512-player Regional is one invite per 32.

The page carries two copy-paste slips worth knowing so they do not confuse you. It promises invites to the "World Championship 25-26 Area Finals" - the Season 1 page says the same - which can only mean 26-27. And its Top 2 prize is labelled a "CS26-27 Regionals Season 1 Prize Card Set (ST03-011, T-022, T-022)", but those three cards are the Season 2 Regionals promo set; Season 1's Regionals promo was ST06-009 Amate Yuzuriha (Machu). The champion's listed prize is a Char Aznable sleeve set.

Path three: the Last Chance Qualifiers

Both Area Finals Bandai has placed sit inside a BANDAI CARD GAMES Fest weekend, and both weekends carry a Last Chance Qualifier:

Neither page gave the LCQ's day within the weekend, its entry fee, its format or how many invites it awards when I read them on 2 October, and on 1 November both Fest tournament listings (dated 21 and 28 August) still say details will be updated in the future. London's admission line says a pre-registered tournament ticket is required. The Fest site's Orlando listing says only "REGIONAL FINALS" without naming an area, while Bandai's Gundam site calls the same event "AREA FINALS"; either way it is the one Gundam Area Finals Bandai lists at a North American venue.

The precedent is last season, when each of the two equivalent finals had a Last Chance Qualifier the day before: 12 December 2025 in Düsseldorf and 13 February 2026 in Las Vegas.

Latin America and Oceania play open finals

Bandai's overview says Level 2 "is open to everyone in Latin America and Oceania", and both Regionals pages still carry the line that those Area Finals "will be Open Finals. Details are forthcoming." (their text is dated 13 March and 15 May). The details are now out elsewhere. Bandai's Area Finals page, which it retitled from Regional Finals, lists Oceania on 16 January 2027 at Marvel Stadium, Bourke Street, Docklands, Victoria, run by TAK Games, and Latin America on 17 January 2027 at Hotel Gran Palace, Huérfanos 1178, Santiago, run by SangSang. Neither is a BCG Fest add-on: none of the eleven BCG Fest 26-27 cities - Jakarta, Manila, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Taipei, Shanghai, Orlando, London and Tokyo - is in either area. The Area Finals 2027 guide has the full schedule and the prize tables.

The consequence for Santiago, Mexico City, Brisbane and Hurstville: the Top 16 line in the prize table carries no invite there, because there is no invite to win. The Brisbane and Hurstville Regionals and the Oceania Area Finals share an organiser in TAK Games, and Santiago's Regional and the Latin America Area Finals share the Hotel Gran Palace. A Regional in those two areas pays its prizes and nothing else. Last season's open Level 2 events in the same areas were standalone - Mexico City on 10 January 2026 and Melbourne on 24 January 2026 - rather than Fest add-ons.

Best-of-one at Level 1, best-of-three at the Area Finals

All four Level 1 pages - both Regionals seasons and both Store Championship seasons - list one match format: best-of-one, one game win, 30 minutes plus 5 minutes of extra time. The Season 2 Regionals page adds that Season 2 Regionals "will continue to be Best of One format", and the Store Championships page says there will be no top cut.

The Area Finals are different. Bandai's Level 2 page lists a best-of-one main tournament at 30 minutes plus 5, and a top cut that is best-of-three with a sideboard: two game wins, 60 minutes, plus 10 minutes of extra time, which Bandai splits as 5 minutes per match for extra turns, sideboarding and similar. It also says your sideboard "must be registered along with your deck prior to participation regardless of whether you advance to top cut or not". The BO3 rules it needs, including the exactly-10-card sideboard Bandai's BO3 Match Rules page sets out, are in the tournament rules guide, and the deckbuilding guide covers building a 50 that has to face the whole room unchanged.

That settles the Area Finals but not Level 1. Section 3.5 of the Tournament Rules Manual says that for Professional level events - its name for Regionals - organisers "should use a best-of-one game match format during qualifying rounds and Best-of-three match format for top cut." The Regionals pages still list best-of-one only and say nothing about a top cut, section 3.6 lets an organiser run an event with no top cut if it says so in advance, and the page tells you to confirm details with the organiser. So at a Regional, confirm the format before you spend an evening on a sideboard; at an Area Finals, plan for one.

The Stardust Trails seven-day window

The date that mattered at Level 1 was 30 October 2026, when Stardust Trails [GD06] released. Section 2.4.1 of the manual bars cards "less than 7 days after release" from "Premier level events (regionals, Championship-related tournaments)", with exceptions for reprints that keep an older card number and for Resource and other non-deck cards. That gave three answers:

• Washington, DC, 31 October: one day after release, so no new GD06 card number was legal there. Its date has passed.
• Utrecht, 7-8 November, and everything after it: eight days or more after release, so clear.
• Store Championships, 1-5 November: unclear, and under way now. The manual files Store Championships under its Competitive level, not Professional, and does not say whether they count as "Championship-related". The Sanctioned Tournament Floor Rules Ver. 1.1.0 apply the same seven-day bar to "Newtype Challenges, Championship events" without saying whether a Store Championship is one. Ask the store before you sleeve a GD06 card. The window closes on 6 November, so Utrecht and every later Regional are clear.

The prize ladder is one Zeong board in pieces

Season 2's Regionals prize table, as Bandai lists it. Bandai does not say whether a higher finish also collects the tiers below it.

The cards are where it gets interesting. The Top 64 set is a promo printing of ST03-011 Char Aznable plus two T-022 Wire-Guided Arm Unit tokens. The champion's set is GD04-017 Zeong plus a T-023 Zeong (Head) Unit token.

Put those five cards on one table and they are one board. Zeong's link requirement is [Char Aznable]. Its 【When Paired･(Newtype) Pilot】 deploys two [Wire-Guided Arm] tokens - (Zeon), AP 2, HP 1, and they can't be paired with a Pilot - and Char Aznable carries the (Newtype) trait, so pairing him fires it. Its 【Destroyed】 deploys a rested [Zeong (Head)] token, (Zeon), AP 3, HP 1. Each of the five Season 2 promo cards is a piece of that one sequence, and the art follows: the Top 4 playmat at the top of this page is the GD04-017 illustration, and the Top 32 sleeves carry the ST03-011 one.

Season 1 did the same thing with two cards. Its champion card was an alt-art GD03-034 GQuuuuuuX (Omega Psycommu), whose link requirement is [Amate Yuzuriha (Machu)] / [Nyaan], and its Top 64 promo (Top 32 at smaller events) was ST06-009 Amate Yuzuriha (Machu). Two seasons, two champion Units, and both times the Pilot that links them was handed out further down the standings. The Link Units guide covers how link requirements work.

The side events, and a 2v2 rule set the rulebook does not have

Each Regional also runs side events, which vary by venue. Season 2's page lists a 64-player Newtype Challenge 1-on-1 and two smaller singles events of 32 and 8, all constructed best-of-one.

Season 1's page listed one more: a "【Pilot Event】Newtype Challenge 2-on-2 Team Battle" for 30 teams, under what Bandai called pilot rules for a competitive 2v2 format. The same rules ran as a side event at last season's Latin America and Oceania Regional Championships. They are not the Team Battle rules in section 12 of the Comprehensive Rules:

Rule 12-3-15 was added in Ver. 1.9.0 on 11 September 2026, after Season 1's last Regional. Ver. 1.10.0, dated 16 October 2026, revised 12-3-5 (the order of redrawing hands, then four cards per player into the shared shield area) and added 12-2-9 (<Blocker> in free-for-all multiplayer); the shield counts in the table are unchanged. Season 2's Regionals page does not list a 2v2 event, but Bandai's Area Finals page lists a Newtype Challenge 2 on 2 side event at every final without publishing its rules. If your store runs a competitive 2v2 night, ask which rule set it is using; the multiplayer rules guide covers the Comprehensive Rules version in full.

What happens after the Area Finals

Bandai's 26-27 overview says the top players from each area join the Grand Final on 13-14 March 2027, invited players only. It does not say how many, or where.

Last season is the nearest guide. At the World Championships 25-26 Regional Championships, that season's Level 2, the prize tables gave a Grand Final invite with airfare and hotel included to North America's top three, Europe's top two and the champions of Latin America and Oceania. The 25-26 Grand Final was held on 14-15 March 2026 at Bandai Namco Mirai-Kenkyusyo in Japan, viewable only on the livestream. Treat those numbers as last season's, not this one's.

What Bandai has not published

• Area Finals seating: how many players each final seats, and so how many Swiss rounds and how big the top cut is.
• Which days of the Orlando and London Fest weekends hold the Area Finals, the Last Chance Qualifier and the top cut.
• The Last Chance Qualifiers: date, cost, format and number of invites. The Fest pages I read on 2 October listed them with no detail.
• Grand Final invitations: how many each area earns, and the 26-27 Grand Final venue.
• The Store Championship list: stores were notified by 30 September, but the event page names none.

Everything above is as of 1 November 2026, and each Bandai page it rests on carries a "may be subject to change" line. An Area Finals schedule, Last Chance Qualifier details or the Grand Final invitation counts would all move this page. For a longer-established qualification system to set this one against, see how Magic's Pro Tour invitations work.