We are excited to announce some significant changes to the NSG Organized Play Season, starting in 2025. We are introducing a number of changes, focused around three goals:
- Providing players around the world with more opportunities to join in with in-person organized play local to them.
- Improving the cohesion of the Organized Play Season, making real connections between events and creating the sense of escalating stakes throughout the year.
- Increasing the number of higher-stakes online events.
To introduce the changes, here is an outline of the structure for the 2025 Organized Play Season. For further explanation of the changes, see below.
Casual Level Events:
Game Night Kits: No changes. 1 per quarter, available through the NSG Store and print-on-demand.
Casual Tournament Kits: Rebranding of Circuit Opener Kits. 2 per year, available through the NSG Store.
Accelerated Meta Tests: No changes. Online events, 2 per month (except when higher level events take precedence).
Competitive Level Events:
District Championships: New event type. Available via application from October 2024, for events to be run in-person January-April 2025. NSG will also run three online District Championships. Tier 1 of competitive play.
Megacity Championships: New event type, replacing National Championships. Available via application from January 2025, for events to be run May-July 2025. New rules for eligibility apply, see below. Tier 2 of competitive play.
Continental Championships: Now in-person and online in all regions. Six events, one in-person and one online for each of the Americas, Europe Middle East & Africa (EMEA) and Asia-Pacific (APAC) regions, held in August-September 2025. Organizers and locations for in-person Continentals will be selected by applications, opening in February 2025, with funding available to help cover venue costs. Winners of online Continentals will be awarded the title ‘Virtual Continental Champion’. Tier 3 of competitive play.
Intercontinental Championship: No longer held in 2025. Due to the increased number of Continental Championships, there is no longer room for the Intercontinental Championship in the OP Season schedule.
World Championship: No changes. Will be held in the EMEA region for 2025, in October. Tier 4 of competitive play.
Circuit Breaker Invitational: No changes. Invitation-only event, with invites extended to top finishers at Casual Tournament Kit events and all competitive level events. Held online in January 2026.
Winners of District Championships, Megacity Championships and Continental Championships will be awarded with a first-round bye (a free win for all games in that round) for one competitive event at the next tier up. District Championship winners will receive a bye for a Megacity Championship; Megacity Championship winners will receive a bye for a Continental Championship; Continental Championship winners will receive a bye for the World Championship.
Casual Season Changes Explained
Casual level events remain largely unchanged. We will still produce two prize kits per year, available for Tournament Organizers (TOs) to run small tournaments during the first and second halves of the Organized Play (OP) season. Previously known as Circuit Opener kits, these are being rebranded to ‘Casual Tournament Kits’ (CTKs), to reduce confusion for newer players and more accurately represent their purpose.
As in previous seasons, Tournament Organizers will be able to buy these kits just before the start of each half of the OP season in 2025. We see these kits as an important introduction for players wanting to experience Organized Play without the pressure of more competitively-focused events.
Casual Tournament Kits can be run in the Standard and Startup Formats. TOs may run CTK events up to just over a year from the announcement of the kits – see here for full details of the deadlines for running kits. Circuit Breaker Invitational invites will be awarded based on the size of the event.
Accelerated Meta Tests (AMTs) have proven to be a huge success, with many players from across the community playing in them or following along. We will continue to run AMTs throughout the year, with two events each month by default. Similar to Casual Tournament Kits, these are a great way to get an introduction to NSG OP.
Game Night Kits will continue to be released at quarterly intervals via the NSG online store, for players to run their own casual events, or to use as supplemental prizes for other events.
Competitive Season Changes Explained
We are making a number of major changes to the competitive level events in the OP Season.
We have often heard feedback that Circuit Openers have not felt enough like the local competitive events of the past. Players have also told us that making the jump from Circuit Openers to Nationals under the current scheme can be jarring, with a significant change in terms of expectations around level of play, rules enforcement and size. We’re also seeing local communities re-emerge as the game continues to grow, and we want to ensure those communities have events that provide a place for them to interact and mix.
To meet these needs, we are introducing a new type of event: District Championships. District Championships are intended to ensure that most players have a local competitive event within a few hours of travel.
We also want to shout out the communities that stepped up to the plate this year to run the North America Netrunner Players’ Circuit (NANPC) and UK Regionals, for helping demonstrate the demand for these sorts of events.
Applications for District Championships will open October, with the process being similar to the process for applying for National Championships in previous seasons. The number of kits awarded will be determined by the size of the player base in each region. The District Championship season will run from January to April.
Online District Championships will be run for the main three time zones (APAC, EMEA and Americas), organized by NSG OP.
Megacity Championships are the next tier of competitive events, replacing National Championships. We have made the decision to disconnect these events from the vagaries of national boundaries – instead we are committed to making sure that all players have a Megacity Championship within a reasonable travel distance. In regions with a large number of well-connected countries, such as Europe, it is likely Megacity Championships will not be awarded to every country. On the other hand, we would expect to award multiple Megacity Championships within larger countries. For some parts of the world where reasonable travel distance does not support a sufficient playerbase (i.e. within APAC), TOs may be chosen to run Megacity Championships online. The Megacity Championship season will run from May to July, with applications opening in January.
Continental Championships will be run in-person in all three continental regions (APAC, EMEA and Americas) for the 2025 competitive season. In addition, we will run three online Continental Championships, one for each of the same regions, on the model we have used for online Continentals in the past. The winners of these events will receive the title of ‘Virtual Continental Champion’, to distinguish them from winners of in-person Continentals. Online and in-person Continentals will award the same prizing and the same level of prestige.
We will be taking applications from TOs who wish to run Continental Championships from February 2025. Funding will be available for each Continental to help cover venue costs. It is expected that Continentals will be run between August and September. The online Continental Championships will be scheduled within the same period, and we will ensure that they do not clash with in-person Continentals.
There are no changes planned for the World Championship, which will be run in October in the EMEA region for 2025. Likewise, the Circuit Breaker Invitational is not changing, and will bring together top finishers from throughout the 2025 OP Season in January 2026.
Lastly, first round byes are being reintroduced as prizes for competitive level events. We hope that rewarding players for their success at one tier of competitive play with an advantage at the next tier will help provide a sense of cohesion and escalation across the OP Season. We’re also looking to keep the number of byes at any given event fairly controlled. Because no byes will be applied until the Megacity level, we expect most of those events will have between two to five first round byes, with around five to eight for Continental Championships and six for Worlds.
We think byes will encourage people to travel for all levels of competitive events, as they provide a meaningful advantage. However, we are clear that having a first round bye will not be a requirement to reach the top levels at a higher level competition. In the many tournaments that are now run using Single Sided Swiss, we expect the relative power of a bye will be lessened. That said, there are still no plans to require competitive events to be run as Single Sided Swiss, and first round byes will be equally valid in Double Sided Swiss events. We will be monitoring the reintroduction of first round byes closely, and will try to respond quickly if this change turns out to be less beneficial than we expect.
Thank you for reading. This season redesign is a lot of work, and we expect to have a few teething issues. If you have thoughts or comments please reach out to us at op@nullsignal.games. We look forward to seeing you at Worlds, and throughout the rest of the 2024 season into 2025! Always be running, friends.
