Announcing the 2022 National Championships

The Organised Play team is happy to announce the first competitive tier event for 2022 season, the 2022 National Championships! National Championships are limited to one per country and are run by a local organizer. Kits will be purchased via an application process. Once the applications close, kits will be assembled and shipped via the NISEI Organised Play network of regional distributors.

In the case of any conflicts of interest, such as a member of NISEI applying to run an event, the applications for the country in question will be reviewed by senior leadership instead of Organised Play. Any persons within Organised Play or senior leadership will recuse themselves if they have a personal stake in an event application.

Inside each kit you will find the following:

• 5× Resistance Playmat (Dominique van Velsen)
• 8× Top Cut Enamel Pin
• 51× Aniccam (Dominique van Velsen)
• 99× Drafter (Scott Uminga)
• 12× IP Block (J. Bias)

Applications for these kits will only be open until May 20, 2022 at 23:59 UTC (closing 2 weeks after this announcement). The price of the kit is $75 USD (United States Dollar), which includes free shipping worldwide. If you expect a larger turnout, we recommend you buy the Boosted prize kit, which costs $150 USD and contains the same prizes in exactly double the quantities.

Prizing

Events are expected to follow the Basic Prize Structure outlined below, or the Boosted Prize Structure for kits that were purchased with that option.

Basic Prize Structure

• Winner: Invitation to the Circuit Breaker Invitational Championship & 2022 World Championship Bye. (Details forthcoming, provisionally to take place Q4 2022. Only valid for events with 8 players or more.)
• Top 4: Resistance Playmat (Dominique van Velsen)
• Top 8: Top Cut Enamel Pin
• Top 16: 3× Aniccam (Dominique van Velsen)
• Top 32: 3× Drafter (Scott Uminga)

Each kit contains additional playsets of Drafter, Aniccam, and an additional Resistance playmat for the Tournament Organizer to keep. The kit also contains 12× IP Block. This card was originally a Continental 2019 promotion, and is included in this kit because all sanctioned event kits now include copies of a rebooted promo card. These rebooted cards can be used as side-event prizes, door prizes, or anything else at the Organizer’s discretion.

Boosted Prize Structure

• Winner: Invitation to the Circuit Breaker Invitational Championship & 2022 World Championship Bye. (Details forthcoming, provisionally to take place Q4 2022. Only valid for events with 8 players or more.)
• Top 8: Resistance Playmat (Dominique van Velsen)
• Top 16: Top Cut Enamel Pin
• Top 32: 3× Aniccam (Dominique van Velsen)
• Top 64: 3x Drafter (Scott Uminga)

You may collect an entry fee to cover the cost of the kit (and venue hire, where applicable). Tournament Organizers are also allowed and actively encouraged to supplement the prizes with other prizes sourced from GNKs or the amazing stuff made by the community. Players should log on to AlwaysBeRunning.net to find events, as well as claim their finishes on events they played in.

Event Restrictions

The 2022 National Championships are sanctioned events for the purposes of the Organized Play Policies. This means you are expected to follow the prize structure above, and the tournament structure outlined in the Policies for Competitive Tier events. 2022 Nationals must be run in the Standard format. You are also expected to advertise your event on AlwaysBeRunning.net. This event can be run at any point during the 2022 calendar year. However, for the winner to be able to take advantage of their Circuit Breaker Invitational entry, it must take place before November 2022. For the winner to be able to take advantage of their 2022 World Championship Bye, the event must take place before October 2022.

As a sanctioned event, purchasing this kit means you are obliged to run a 2022 National Championship. Buying a kit to either keep for yourself or to resell undermines the spirit of these competitions and the legitimacy of the prizes which other players had to enter and place in a tournament to win. Excepting extenuating circumstances, not using your kit to run a tournament may lead to you being barred from purchasing non-GNK kits in the future.

These kits are much, much lower volume than the Circuit Openers and therefore we will be keeping a much closer eye on them. Again, we urge you to please take seriously the responsibility to run an event and plan accordingly.

COVID Guidance

Although we expect that many Organizers will be able to run their events in-person this year, please follow your local government’s safety guidelines for COVID-19. In the event that you elect to run your event online for safety reasons, please remember to price entry accordingly to take account of costs you may incur for posting prizes. We are constantly reviewing our COVID-19 policies, and will post updates if they change. Please remember to put your and your players’ safety first.

For Tournament Organizers who need help running an event on Jinteki.net, we have a dedicated Events Discord where veteran TOs and NISEI staff will be happy to help you, as well as an article with helpful tips we previously published.

Season Tracker

To help both players and Organizers keep track of which type of tournament is happening at any given point in the calendar, we created the 2022 Competitive Season Status Page. There, you can find information on what types of tournaments are running now, what the permitted period to organize certain events is, which tournaments are in the application stage and when the application period is, and other useful information. Please keep checking back, as it will continue to be updated as we solidify more of the Competitive Season schedule!

Safety First, friends, and Always Be Running.