Origins TCG at Steam Next Fest 2026: Demo 2.0, dates and the tournament

The two dates to remember

• Steam Next Fest, October 2026 edition: 19–26 October. Valve's festival of playable demos runs from Monday 19 October at 10:00 Pacific time (19:00 in Italy) to Monday 26 October. Origins TCG is in it with the big Demo 2.0 update.
• Origins TCG tournament: 20–25 October. Koin Games calls it "our biggest tournament ever": a multi-day event that goes Qualification → Playoffs → Finals, entirely online and in-game.

What Demo 2.0 brings

The build was tested in three closed playtests in August (patches 0.6.1, 0.6.2 and 0.6.3, all tracked in our MetaShift). Koin Games announced three things for it:

• five new decks, on top of the ones in the July demo;
• more than 70 new cards;
• deckbuilding: for the first time everyone can build their own 25-card deck (one Legendary plus twelve cards, each played as two copies) instead of choosing a preset list.

The playtests also introduced a ranked ladder with divisions up to Grandmaster and a world leaderboard. We will publish every change on the day it lands.

The tournament, step by step

1. Qualifiers, 20–22 October. Three of them, one per major region, on the 20th, 21st and 22nd. In Koin's words, "you can join ANY of the qualifiers, no matter where you live": pick the one whose time suits you, and sign up only for the ones you will really play.
2. Playoffs and finals, up to 25 October. The best players from the qualifiers meet in the playoff stage; content creators get wildcard invites straight into the playoffs (ask on Discord).
3. Format. The Steam announcement does not state it. At Big Bob's Playtest Battle on 28 August Koin trialed Conquest: best-of-3, single elimination, several decks with a different Legendary in each, at least nine cards of difference between decks, one ban. Expect something close to that and read the official rules when they are published.
4. Prizes. An exclusive 1/1 tournament promo card, digital packs, booster boxes and cases, and cash prizes. In the community the tournament goes by the name Crimson Cup with a 10,000-dollar pool; we will confirm the figures against the official rulebook.

Sign-ups are on the official Discord.

How to prepare in five moves

1. Install the free demo on Steam and play the missions: they teach the three lanes and the simultaneous turns.
2. Read Origins TCG explained in five minutes and the card database: the current stats are those of patch 0.6.3.
3. Build your three Conquest decks in our deck builder: it checks the different-Legendary rule and counts the cards that differ between decks.
4. Study the playtest decks and the lists the community publishes; publish yours with a guide so others can rate it.
5. Follow the news: every announcement is summarized within a day, with a link to the source.

How OriginsMeta covers the week

A news item every day during the festival, tournament decks published with their composition charts the same day, and the first OriginsMeta tier list on 27 October, built on the tournament results and the top of the ladder. Sources: the official Steam posts of 4 August, 25 August and 9 September 2026, and the Steam Next Fest schedule.