With a new Organised Play season just beginning, we have some changes to announce for 2026!
The 2025 season was our first season with the new competitive pipeline of District Championships feeding into Megacity Championships feeding into Continental Championships, and the first time we ran in-person Continentals for every region. It was amazing to see over 70 Districts and 27 Megacities take place, as well as great turnout for all the in-person Continentals.
While there were certainly hiccups, we think players generally had good experiences, and the season was a success that we can continue to build on. Remember, you can send us feedback on the 2025 season now!
As previously announced, we’ve made some adjustments to Megacities this year, with some regions getting more and a few getting less, to see what works best for players globally.
Here are the other major changes we’re making for the 2026 season:
- Casual Tournament Kits no longer give Circuit Breaker Invitational (CBI) invites. Instead, the winner will be awarded a ticket for the CBI participation card prize. This prize will roll down if the winner already has this card.
- District Championships do not need to run a top cut, and single elimination top cuts are permitted. Megacity and Continental Championships are still required to run double elimination cuts.
- NSG Hosted Online competitive events (Districts, Megacities, and Continentals) will not require a paid ticket to earn the bye or a CBI invite – any player can qualify. Paid tickets will still be required for physical prizing.
The change to Casual Tournament Kits is coming from two different angles. For small tournaments, the incentives to run cuts just to get players CBI invites was opposed to the goal of making CTKs low stakes fun events for all skill levels. On the other end, it required a lot of effort on our end to track invites from so many events, and it was confusing for people whether or not they got an invite from a particular event. We’re hoping this also makes CBI invites a bit more prestigious, and gives more people incentives to play in Accelerated Meta Tests, which will continue to give invites.
Another boon to our less Standard-focused players: without a CBI invite, Casual Tournament Kits can now be used for formats beyond just Standard and Startup. You can use their prizing for anything from beginner-friendly System Gateway only tournaments to high-power Eternal format events.
We want District Championships to be able to run in a single day. Last year we told TOs single elimination cuts were acceptable to allow the schedule to work out. We’re formalizing that policy and making it more concrete in the organized play policies.
We’re releasing a small update to the Organized Play Policies to formalise these changes. Longer term we’ll be reworking the OPP more thoroughly (including making dedicated Player and TO guides that are more readable than the current policy document). The rework will include a small set of updates, such as the above cut policy changes, some clarifications on deck check policy, and making the take-back section easier to understand with text clarifications as well as examples. We don’t have a date for delivering this update yet, but will provide more information when we do!
Good luck to everyone attending District Championships in the coming weeks. We hope you enjoy the 2026 Netrunner Organised Play Season right up to the World Championship!
