Palworld TCG Challengers Cup Prizes and 2 New Promo Cards

Two cards quietly landed in the Palworld TCG's official database this week, and one of them breaks a pattern our own promo cards guide called out by name a month ago: not one of Bushiroad's first sixteen promos carried the Lucky Pal icon, or reprinted anything rarer than an Uncommon. EPR-010 does both. It is a reprint of Jormuntide Ignis - Savage Lava Dragon, the RR-rarity Lucky Pal from Dawn of Palpagos, and the card's own printed frame carries a serial-number window - the first time a Palworld TCG promo has shown one at all. Neither it nor its Common-tier companion, EPR-011 (Lovander - Heartstealer), is sitting in a booster pack or either of the two PR Card Packs that guide catalogued in August. Both are exclusive prizes for the Grand Challengers Cup, and as of this week the full prize structure and registration process are live on Bushiroad's site.

What EPR-010 and EPR-011 actually are

Both are field-for-field reprints, the same pattern our promo guide found in the original nine: identical cost, Power, Strike, text, colour and work suitability to an existing printing.

EPR-010 carries the exact ability its base RR printing does: an ACT ability, Once Per Turn, that stands the card for three souls or by discarding two cards from hand. Official Q&A #52 - already covered in our rulings guide - rules that paying one of those costs does not unlock a second activation by paying the other, and Bushiroad's Q&A listing now tags EPR-010 alongside the original printing under that same ruling. EPR-011's ability is simpler: AUTO on Attack, you may discard a card from hand to gain 1 life - again, word for word what EBP01-081 already prints.

Where they differ from their base printings is the art. Both use illustrations not seen on any existing Jormuntide Ignis or Lovander printing, and neither card carries a flavour text box - the same full-bleed treatment our rarities guide already documented on the set's SSP parallels. EPR-010 goes a step further: its card frame reserves a gold-bordered "000/750" window above the artwork, a numbering template no earlier Palworld TCG promo has carried.

The first Lucky Pal, and the first chase-tier promo

Our promo guide was specific about this in August: "Bushiroad promoted the cheap cards. Four Commons, four Uncommons, one trial-deck card. No R, no RR, nothing from the chase tier," and "All nine promo Pals carry the Normal Pal subtype... Zero Lucky Pals." Both statements were accurate on 14 August. Neither is accurate anymore. EPR-010 reprints a Lucky Pal, and it reprints an RR - the rarest of Dawn of Palpagos's four base rarities.

That matters beyond the collector angle. Jormuntide Ignis is one of exactly three Pals in the entire launch pool with Strike 4 - the stat that actually moves a life total - and all three are Lucky Pals, as our pal cards by cost breakdown and Lucky Pals guide both establish. Comprehensive Rules 6.1.1.3 caps a 50-card main deck at eight Lucky Pal slots, so this is a card players are already fighting to fit in. A free copy for winning a store's Grand Challengers Cup is a real competitive prize, not a shelf piece - the first time that has been true of anything Bushiroad has given away through organised play.

How you actually get them: the Grand Challengers Cup

Neither card is in PR Card Pack Vol.1 or Vol.1.5, the two pools our promo guide fully catalogued. They are exclusive to the Grand Challengers Cup, whose prize list Bushiroad has now published in full:

• Every participant: one card from PR Card Pack Vol.1 (the same nine-type pool as before - EPR-002 through EPR-009 plus the Soul ESOUL-008) plus a Bushi Navi event flair.
• Top 4: an exclusive EPR-011 (Lovander – Heartstealer).
• Champion only: a random serial-numbered EPR-010 (Jormuntide Ignis – Savage Lava Dragon), plus a second Bushi Navi flair.

Read that carefully and the scarcity gap is the story. Roughly four players walk away with the Lovander for every one who walks away with the dragon, since only the store's eventual winner gets it - a much steeper cut than the original nine promos, which every participant received just for showing up.

Registration opened on Bushi Navi on 10 September 2026 at 8 AM PT. Each official tournament store may run its Grand Challengers Cup once, on any date between 1 and 31 October 2026 - the window our promo guide already flagged from the August conference recap, now filled in with an actual prize list and sign-up process.

The Grand Challengers Cup runs a different format than shop tournaments

Our promo guide covered the format for monthly Shop Tournaments and the Grand Release Tournament: pure Swiss, best of one, no cut. The Grand Challengers Cup adds a real top cut on top of that.

Preliminary rounds are Swiss, best of one, 30-minute rounds: five rounds, or until the rounds produce one undefeated player, whichever comes first. Time-up with no winner is still the familiar double loss, with no extra time awarded - the same Annex A Palworld protocol our earlier floor-rules coverage documented, and the Grand Challengers Cup's own page states it directly rather than by reference.

The cut then depends on turnout. A store that draws 32 players or fewer cuts to a top-4 single-elimination bracket; 33 or more and it is a top 8. Top-cut time-up is more forgiving than the Swiss rounds: both players get 10 minutes or three extra turns, whichever comes first, and only then does the player with the lower life total lose. The final round has no time limit at all.

This is not sealed or draft. Bring your own pre-constructed legal deck, and register your decklist through Bushi Navi's deck log before you sit down.

The Vol.1.5 promos also got real database entries

One more update worth a paragraph, not a full post. Our promo guide found that EPR-002S through EPR-009S - the eight "S" treatments handed out to September and October shop tournament champions - had no entries in the card database at all: "Those S card numbers do not appear in the card database at all; they exist on the event pages as images only." That has changed. All eight now have real entries, stat-for-stat identical to their Vol.1 counterparts. It is a database bookkeeping fix, not a new card, but if you pulled one and wanted to look up its numbers, you finally can.

What Bushiroad still hasn't published

• The exact print run and numbering scheme behind EPR-010, beyond the "000/750" figure printed on the card's own template image. No press release states 750 in words anywhere on the site.
• Whether a store with fewer than four total entrants still hands out all four Top-4 prizes.
• Why EPR-010 and EPR-011 sit outside both PR Card Packs, when every promo before them was distributed through one of the two.
• Pull rates or print numbers for anything else in the promo line, as our original guide already noted.

Quick reference

• Two new promos: EPR-010 (Jormuntide Ignis – Savage Lava Dragon, an RR-rarity Lucky Pal reprint) and EPR-011 (Lovander – Heartstealer, a Common reprint), added to the PR2026 database this week.
• EPR-010 is the promo line's first Lucky Pal and first RR-tier reprint. Every one of the first nine promo Pals was Common, Uncommon or a trial-deck card.
• EPR-010's card image shows a "000/750" serial-number window - the promo line's first numbered card.
• Distribution is Grand Challengers Cup only. Top 4 finishers get EPR-011; the champion alone also gets a serial-numbered EPR-010.
• Neither card is in PR Card Pack Vol.1 or Vol.1.5.
• Registration opened on Bushi Navi on 10 September 2026; each store runs its Cup once between 1 and 31 October 2026.
• Format: Swiss prelims (5 rounds or one undefeated player) into a single-elimination cut - top 4 at 32 players or fewer, top 8 at 33 or more.
• The eight Vol.1.5 "S" promos also picked up real database entries in this same update, after our August guide found none.