Retailer Pre-release Guide

A Cyberpunk TCG Pre-release is a "sealed" Swiss-style tournament with best-of-3 matches, run between October 30 and November 1, 2026 for Welcome to Night City, with future Pre-release dates to be announced next year.

Pre-releases give players a fun introduction to the game, help your store build excitement for new set releases, and attract players interested in regular Cyberpunk TCG events.

To host a Pre-release, create a tournament through Melee.gg, Cyberpunk TCG's official organized play partner. Players around the world will search for games near them through Melee, so publish your event registration early for the best possible turnout.

Create the Event in Melee.gg

To set up the tournament for your players, log into Melee.gg as an Organizer and follow these instructions.

1. Navigate to your Organization Dashboard and select Create Tournament.
2. Select Cyberpunk TCG as the game, and then Continue.
3. Under Tournament Details, fill in these fields as follows:

Tournament Name	Cyberpunk TCG Welcome to Night City Pre-release
Tournament Tags	Pre-release
Location	Choose or add the address for your store's play space. (This is required for players to find the event; only tournaments with a Location appear in the "Find Events" search results.)

4. Under Structure & Format, fill in these fields as follows:

Tournament Structure	Swiss Only
Tournament Format	Sealed

5. Under Player Registration, fill in these fields as follows:

Player Cap	Set this equal to the number of Pre-release Kits you have available.
Advanced Options > Minimum Player Age	17 (Cyberpunk TCG is rated 17+)

6. Select Create Tournament at the bottom of the page.
7. When you're ready to open event registration, select Tournament Status > Publish Tournament in the top right corner, and then Confirm in the pop-up.
8. Your event is now available to players! You can share the page link with players directly, or they can find it themselves by searching Melee's event page.

Link your store's Melee.gg and CyberpunkTCG.com accounts

Ahead of our first Pre-release events, we've integrated events listed in Melee into our store locator. Now, players near you can find your events easily using this tool. But in order to pull your events into this map, you need to link your store's Melee.gg account and CyberpunkTCG.com accounts together.

The linking process is quick and simple. When starting the linking process from CyberpunkTCG.com:

1. Click the “Account” button at the top right of the screen. Click the “Manage Account” button to go to your account page.
2. Under your account details on CyberpunkTCG.com, there is a section titled “Connected Accounts”. Click on “Connect Melee”.
3. You will then be prompted to sign into the Melee.gg account you would like to connect. Complete this step, and your account will now be connected.

When starting the linking process from Melee.gg:

1. Click on your profile icon in the upper right corner and choose “Manage your account settings.”
2. From the left-hand section menu, choose “Game-specific info.”
3. Find the section on “Cyberpunk TCG ID” and click on the button to link the accounts.
4. You will be redirected to the CyberpunkTCG.com login page, where you can either create a CyberpunkTCG.com account or log into an existing one.
5. Once you log in, you will be presented with a connection request screen. Click “Connect with Melee” to complete the linking process.

Create a Guest Melee.gg Account for a Player

You might have players show up to the event with no experience using Melee. Players need a Melee account to register for the event, but if a walk-in player can't create an account for themselves, you can make a guest account for them at the event within seconds or create an account for them.

1. Open the Tournament Controller for your "Cyberpunk TCG Pre-release" tournament.
2. Navigate to the Players tab. (Located in the left sidebar on desktop browsers, and in the hamburger menu on mobile browsers.)
3. Select Player Actions > Enroll Guest Player in the top right corner.
4. In the pop-up menu, select Generate Guest Account. This creates and immediately enrolls a guest account into the tournament.
5. Give the guest account details to the player. Either select Print Account Details or enter the player's email to send it to them directly.

If you add a guest account accidentally, you can go to the players list and change the status of the guest account to "unenrolled" to remove it from the tournament.

Learn the Cyberpunk TCG Game Rules

Since this Welcome to Night City Pre-releases will be many stores' first ever organized play event for Cyberpunk TCG, you and/or your attendees may not yet be familiar with how the game is played. Here are a few resources to learn and teach the game.

• How to Play Video – A quick-and-easy 5-minute overview of gameplay.
• Printable Reminder Sheet - A handy 1-page reminder sheet for what you can do on your turn. We recommend printing out a few copies for your players to reference as they learn the game.
• Official Gameplay Guide – A 15-minute read containing everything a casual player will ever need to know.
• Comprehensive Rules – Reference document that adjudicates every possible gameplay process and interaction. (You probably only need this one if there's a gameplay dispute during the event.)

Rules for this specific event and the deckbuilding specs for Cyberpunk TCG's "sealed" format are detailed in the next section.

Cyberpunk TCG Pre-release events are "sealed" Swiss-style tournaments, played with best-of-3 matches. But most importantly, they're an extremely casual affair. Encourage players to learn and have fun with the game over competing to win.

When the event begins, make sure all players are registered for the event through Melee, give any inexperienced players a quick demo or explanation, and either explain or provide a printed copy of the deckbuilding rules.

Deckbuilding

Pre-release events are "sealed deck" format; players purchase a Cyberpunk TCG Pre-release Kit, which includes everything they need to play in the event.

• 6x Welcome to Night City Retail booster packs
• 3x additional random Legend cards
• 1x Pre-release promo card, a Nova Rare "Gorilla Arms"
• 1x full set of Cyberpunk TCG polyhedral dice (d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20)

When the event begins, players should open their Legends pack and all booster packs. They may also open their Nova Rare "Gorilla Arms" if they wish to play with it in their deck (but they may choose to keep it sealed, instead). Give players 30-60 minutes to construct a deck from the cards they open, with these requirements.

At least 30x non-Legend cards (the "main deck")

• The player chooses up to 3 colors for their main deck, and may only use cards in those 3 colors. (Ignore any RAM limits, both value and color)
• The player is welcome to use as many copies of a card as they want in their main deck.

Exactly 3x Legend cards

• Pre-release Kits include 3 guaranteed Legend cards, and the player may choose any Legends opened from their booster packs, too.
• Legend cards may be any color, regardless of which colors are in their deck.
• If the player sleeves their cards, their Legend card sleeves should be visually different from their main deck sleeves.

While not required, we recommend the main deck includes at least 15 cards with a "sell tag," to make sure the player has enough resources to consistently play cards. (The sell tag is the €$ symbol in the top-left corner, beneath the card's cost.)

Opened but unused cards act as a sideboard. Between matches, a player may choose to sideboard by swapping cards from their deck with any other cards in their wider pool, as long as they still follow all the deckbuilding rules outlined above.

Rounds & Player Pairings

During the event itself, Melee will automatically pair players when you select Match Next Round. For the first round of Swiss, pairings will be random. For each subsequent round, Melee will make sure no two players are paired together twice, and that players with similar win/loss records are paired against each other each round. If you have an odd number of players, one player with the lowest win/loss record will receive a Bye (they'll sit out for that round).

Here's a quick estimate about what the event will look like, based on the number of players you have.

Expected Players	Rounds	Total Event Time Estimate
04 - 08	3	4 hours
09 - 16	4	5 hours
17 - 32	5	6 hours

*Estimate is 1 hour per round, plus an additional hour to account for deckbuilding and breaks between matches for pairings

Matches (Best-of-3)

Each round has a time limit of 50 minutes. Remember that matches are best-of-3, so within a round each pair will play 2-3 games. The first player to win 2 games wins the match.

If players go over the 50 minutes allotted for the round without a winner, the winner of the match is the person who has won the most games at the end of Round End Procedures:

1. Finish the current turn.
2. Both players then get one full turn each. They have 5 minutes to complete both of these final turns.
3. At the end of both final turns, if a player controls 7 or more Gig dice, they win the game. Otherwise, the game is a draw.
4. The player who has won the most games is the winner of the match. If no players have won more games in the match, the match is a draw.