2026 WORLD SERIES OF BOARD GAMING ONLINE TOURNAMENTS INFORMATION AND RULES
The WSBG will be running a series of online tournaments on Board Game Arena and possibly other applications leading up to the live event held September 5-9, 2026 at the Horseshoe Hotel in Las Vegas. The main events at this 5 day tournaments are called Ring Games. These are single elimination tournaments played at 3 to 5 players if possible. (2 player games are possible in early rounds). Each tournament will culminate in a final table which will be either live streamed or released later with commentary on the WSBGofficial YouTube channel. There are 4 tournaments held concurrently each day for the first four days. Players may choose to compete in one Ring Game each day for a total of up to 4 Ring tournaments throughout the event. On the fifth day, all 16 ring winners will be randomly placed into one of 4 randomly drawn games from the 16 ring events in an event called the Grand Semi-Final. Players will not be placed in a game in which they have already won a Ring. The winners of those four tables will then play in a Grand Final. All the games those 4 players have won a Ring in and have won in a Grand Semi-Final will be removed from a bag. Each player will then be able to secretly veto 1 remaining game each. The winner of the Grand Final will win $25,000. Second place will win $10,000, third $5,000, and fourth $1,000. Throughout the event there will also be a series of other tournaments. Phoenix tournaments will be held for each of the 16 Ring Games and many other games. These will have varying entry fees and the winners will receive cash and other prizes. There will also be several other publisher sponsored world championships held throughout the event with various entry fees and prizes. The WSBG Online tournaments will be giving away tickets, games, and other swag leading up to the in-person event.
Online Tournaments
WSBG on BGA:
This will be a series of tournaments held on Board Game Arena throughout 2025 and 2026. 16 games will be represented throughout this series of tournaments. 11 of the games will be Ring events at the WSBG. The remaining 5 games were not yet on BGA at the start of the tournament so will be replaced by other games which are featured as Phoenix events at the WSBG. These tournaments will be held in three stages. Stage 1 is our Freeroll Tournaments. Stage 2 is our Premier Tournaments. Stage 3 is our Grand Championship which will be held Real-Time on August 8, 2026 starting at 4:30 PM UTC on our Discord server and BGA. The 16 games represented in chronological order of tournament start date are 1. Ark Nova 2. Terraforming Mars 3. Splendor 4. The White Castle 5. 7 Wonders 6. Azul 7. Earth 8. Lost Ruins of Arnak 9. The Castles of Burgundy 10. Wingspan 11. Ticket to Ride 12. Heat: Pedal to the Metal 13. Carcassonne 14. Great Western Trail 15. Gaia Project 16. Harmonies
Freeroll Tournaments:
These Stage 1 tournaments are free and open to the public on Board Game Arena. These tournaments will be held in four to five round Swiss style tournaments. BGA will assign points based on each players’ placement in each game. Each game will have 2 weeks to finish. There will be several held for each of the WSBG on BGA games. Different tournaments for the same game will be held covering different time zones. You may only enter ONE tournament per Freeroll Game. Players that enter multiple tournaments must withdraw from all but one tournament or contact wsbgofficial on BGA. Players that are signed up for multiple tournaments may be disqualified from winning that tournament. This rule was instituted half way through the season, so players may contact wsbgofficial on BGA or DeCante on Discord to appeal if they did not see the announcement. Players that appeal will only have the tournament score counted from their region and their scores from other regional tournaments will be ignored. Players may play in a Freeroll tournament outside their region as long as they only enter one region. The winner, or tied winners of each regional Freeroll will receive a free entry into a Premier Tournament of the same game. If a player already has a ticket to that Premier tournament or is a Premium member, they will receive a free WSBG promo item from the event. Previous promo items have included exclusive cards, maps, playmats, boards or other items from various Ring Games. If a player goes over time, please try to contact
Premier Tournaments:
Stage 2 are the PREMIER tournaments. These will be single elimination tournaments just like WSBG. There will be 2 for each of the 16 games previously announced as Freeroll tournaments. 1 tournament for each game will be a live REAL-TIME tournament on 16 different weekends throughout the year. The other ones will be asynchronous TURN-BASED tournaments that will be played at a pace of 2 weeks to 30 days per game. This makes a total of 32 Premier Tournaments throughout the 2025-2026 season. The winner of each will receive a free entry into the Stage 3 Real-Time Grand Championship tournament that will be held on August 8th, 2026. The winner of each tournament will also receive a Round 1 bye at the WSBG in Las Vegas 2026 for the tournament they won. If the game they won is not an official Ring Game or a game they will not be able to compete in as a Ring Game, that player may choose to get a free entry into a Phoenix Tournament of their choice at the WSBG 2026 in Las Vegas. If anyone who purchases a ticket misses the event, they may convert that ticket to another event. Real-Time Premier tournaments will be played throughout the year on Saturdays starting 5PM UTC and 4PM UTC starting after the second Sunday in March. There will be a few announcements on the WSBG Stage channel on the Discord about 15 minutes before the start of the tournament. Once a live round starts, a player will have 5 minutes to join their table. If they miss the start of their table, they will be eliminated from the tournament. It is recommended they stay logged on to BGA and Discord so they do not miss any notifications about the start of the next round. Any player that misses the start of their table will be eliminated from the tournament. A player must expect to compete in the entire tournament when they enter. Most Real-Time tournaments last 2 or 3 rounds, but could potentially last 4 rounds if more than 64 players sign up. Players are encouraged to join the voice chat that matches their BGA table number once the game has started. Players are not allowed to join the commentary channel or listen to any live commentary once the game has started. Observers are not allowed to comment in the chat on BGA nor allowed to visit with the players in the voice chat during a tournament game. Once eliminated, players may join the commentary chat to watch and comment on the game. If a game times out in a Premier Tournament, the judges will determine if any players from that game should move on to the next round that did not in the BGA tournament. If a change needs to be made, a new tournament will be created with all the players that had not yet been eliminated from that tournament.
Grand Championship:
Stage 3 will be our live online GRAND CHAMPIONSHIP. This will take place on August 8, 2026 at 4:30 PM UTC with games starting at 5PM UTC. There will be 64 seats in this event. 32 seats will be available for purchase at wsbgvegas.com. These are currently sold out. These seats will first be made available to Premier Members for purchase. If they do not sell out, the remaining seats will be made available for public purchase. The other 32 seats will be filled by the winners of each of the 32 Premier Tournaments. If any Premier tournament winner is not able to make it to the Grand Championship, they cannot transfer their ticket to another player. Their seat will be made available for purchase to a waiting list. Premium Members will have first chance at purchasing a ticket for an additional seat. Purchased seats may be transferred to another competitor. The Grand Championship will be three rounds. For round 1, one week before the tournament, all players will be randomly drawn into 16 different tables representing all 16 games from the online tournaments. Unlike the WSBG Las Vegas event, players may possibly drawn into a Freeroll or Premier game they won. If a player has multiple seats in the Championship whether won or bought, they may choose a seat from where their ticket was drawn. This may give them a choice of which game they play. If multiple seats are drawn into the same game, they would play that one at a smaller player count. The winners from Round 1 will then be randomly drawn into a Semi-Final game. This game cannot be a game they won from Round 1. This game will start soon after the drawing without any practice. For the third and final round, all games that each of the 4 players had previously won in the first two rounds will be removed from the drawing. The four remaining players will each secretly submit one veto and those games will be removed. The final game will be randomly drawn and the players will start the game soon after. The winner of the final game will receive a free Stay & Play package which includes 4 Ring events and a hotel stay for four nights of the event in Las Vegas. This prize may be used for WSBG in 2026 or 2027.
Premium Membership:
Players may purchase a WSBG Premium Membership. Premium Membership is good from November 2025 to October 2026. Premium Members have the following perks:
Free entry into all 32 Premier Tournaments
Access to an exclusive members-only channel in the Discord server and an exclusive group on BGA
Additional prized tournaments for members only
Exclusive giveaways and WSBG promo prizes for Freeroll events
First access to Championship events
Exclusive discounts on the Championship event and other items
Free access to app based tournaments
The additional tournaments that are available exclusively to members are Pop-Up Tournaments, App based tournaments, WSBG Team tournaments and WSBG Duel Tournaments. The rules for each of these are as follows:
Pop-Up Tournaments:
These are sponsored tournaments for Premium Members only. The winner or top finishers may win a prize offered by a publisher or other sponsor. WSBG is not responsible publisher prizes. Publisher prizes cannot be guaranteed by the WSBG or its partners. Each tournament will have a description of its prize on the tournament page or in the Discord server.
WSBG Teams:
These tournaments are exclusive to Premium Members. Teams will consist of four players and possibly some alternates. There will be multiple seasons of team tournaments throughout the year. Once all teams have been formed, WSBG Ring Games will be chosen randomly for the players to compete. The winners of the WSBG Teams tournament will each win a T-Shirt with their team name on it. The specific rules of the Team tournament will change each season.
WSBG Duel:
These tournaments are exclusive to Premium Members. WSBG Duel will be a tournament consisting of 16 different games played at 2 players only. There will be multiple seasons of Duel tournaments throughout the year. Each season’s games will be chosen by staff, nominated by members, chosen by vote, and/or chosen randomly from nominations. Stage 1 will be single elimination tournaments. The winner of each game will move on to Stage 2. In the Stage 2 championship rounds, 4 games will be chosen randomly WSBG style. Players cannot play a game in Stage 2 that if they won that tournament in Stage 1. For the first two rounds, 4 players will play 2 rounds of single elimination for their randomly chosen game. Players that win two tournaments will receive a round 1 bye. Players that win 3 tournaments will receive a round 1 bye and a choice of game. Players that win 4 tournaments will receive a round 1 and 2 bye. For the Round 3 semi-final and final, the four remaining players will play a randomly drawn game. All games that were previously won by each player will be removed. Then, each player will secretly veto a game. Those games will be removed from the drawing. Players will then play a 2 round single elimination championship tournament. Optionally, some seasons may feature another random drawing for the 2 player final game. The overall winner will receive a free entry into a single ring event. The 2nd place winner will receive an Open Gaming Pass for WSBG. An Open Gaming Pass gives a player free access the open gaming area and allows them to register for any Phoenix tournament.
App Based Tournaments Any tournament played on an app will be run on a spreadsheet. Players will be responsible for creating games and submitting their results using an online form. Prizes for app-based tournaments may vary.
Any questions or inquiries about online tournaments can be made by contacting the Online Tournament Director Antonio DeCante at
antonio@wsbgvegas.com or by messaging @DeCante on the WSBG Discord server or by messaging wsbgofficial on BGA.
