The circuitWhat the City Challenge is
The City Challenge is China’s city-level circuit: local tournaments played in seasons, paying out in cards rather than cash. On a far bigger scale, it is the rough equivalent of what Nexus Night store evenings are in Europe. Season 5 splits into two phases: the first from 31 October to 6 December, the second from 12 December to 10 January.
The prizesFour cards and a playmat
For each phase the poster lists four lines of rewards: a card for the champion, the same card in a version for high finishers, a card for simply turning up, and a reward pack for the Top 16.
| Reward | Phase one 31 Oct – 6 Dec | Phase two 12 Dec – 10 Jan |
|---|---|---|
| Champion card | Akali | Ahri |
| High finisher card | Akali | Ahri |
| Participation card | Graves | Lulu |
| Top 16 reward | Reward pack | Reward pack |
Above the prize grid sits the headline item: the champion playmat, carrying a street-art illustration of Riven with the 0-to-8 score counter printed down the left edge. It goes to the winner.
The Top 16 packs are the part collectors will care about. As the person who posted the poster points out, they contain full-art battlefields — the “locations” players fight over, here with the frame stripped away and the art running edge to edge — and they are standard sized, not the double-width ones handed out at Regional Championships. The poster shows four per phase, eight in all.
CaveatsWhat we do not know
The poster carries both the Riot Games and the Shining Soul logo — Shining Soul publishes Riftbound in China — but it reached us through a Reddit post and has not appeared on Riot’s international channels. The card names are printed in Chinese only: the official English titles of these four promos are unknown, and for the same reason we cannot say whether they are reprints with new art or cards nobody has seen. The battlefields, so far, exist only as thumbnails on the poster.
Why it matters to us. Nobody in Italy is going to win these cards: if they arrive at all, they arrive through the secondary market, exactly as the Chinese Radiance exclusives did, starting with the artist-signed Seraphine. Knowing that eight standard-size full-art battlefields will be circulating in China between late October and January is worth two things: recognising them when they show up in listings, and not paying Regional Championship prices for them, because the double-width RC battlefields are a different product.
The short version
- Season 5 of China’s City Challenge runs from 31 October to 10 January, in two phases.
- Promos: Akali and Graves in phase one, Ahri and Lulu in phase two; a Riven playmat for the champion.
- The Top 16 get reward packs containing standard-size full-art battlefields.
- China-only rewards: the poster has not yet appeared on Riot’s international channels.
Source: r/riftboundtcg (u/blizzire). Images: Riot Games / Shining Soul.
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