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Both games · Calendar · 16 Aug 2026

What is coming for the rest of 2026

Two games, two release schedules, one anniversary year. Duel Masters turns 25 and PLAY'S turns 7 in December. Here is everything dated, in English, in one place.

Dates marked est. are projections from established release patterns, not announcements. Everything else is confirmed.

How the two schedules work

Paper TCGPLAY'S
CadenceRoughly monthly, alternating set typesNew set every two months
Set codesDM26-RPn regular, EX extra, SD deck, BD deck, SP specialDMPP-nn regular, DMPX special, DMPB anniversary
Current arcGyakusatsu-hen — "Ex Dream"Sōkyoku-hen
Milestone25th anniversary, running 2026–20277th anniversary, December
The set codes tell you what a product is RP is the numbered regular line — the one that defines the format. EX is an extra set, usually a collaboration or a "best of" compilation. SD and BD are preconstructed decks. On the PLAY'S side, DMPP is regular and DMPX is not — which is why the current idol set does not have a number in the main sequence.

The calendar

Last checked 29 Sep 2026. Dates move; anything marked est. or late has not been given an exact day by the publisher.

August2026 · now
8 Aug PaperDM26-EX3 — Dragon Musume 100% Pack Character premium pack. Full collaboration set with newly drawn art on every card, built around five student groups.
10 Aug PaperBigHall of Fame revision takes effect Nineteen cards changed. Full breakdown →
16 Aug PLAY'SGrand Prix applications close Extended deadline, field expanded to 3,500. Details →
25 Aug PLAY'SMV campaign ends Follow-and-repost draw for signed illustration boards from the five idol voice actors. 23:59 JST.
September2026
13 Sep PLAY'SBigDuel Masters PLAY'S Grand Prix 2026 Makuhari Messe halls 7–8. 3,500 players, New Division, Swiss into single elimination.
19 Sep PaperDM26-RP3 — Ex Dream Set 3 "Katsuteki! Gyakuten Okose Oni no ∞ Dispector!!" The third regular set of the current arc.
19–20 Sep PLAY'SDuema Card Lab A broadcast slot across the weekend.
21 Sep PLAY'SDuepure Juku The teaching programme.
24 Sep PLAY'SBigDMPP-37 — Nijitei ∞ Meidō 「虹帝∞命動 -FINAL ORAORA RINGFINITY!!-」 Arrives with the maintenance window, 9:00–17:00 JST. DMPP-32 rotates out of New Division the same day — New Division holds the six most recent releases, so a new one arriving pushes the oldest out. Those cards stay legal in All Division. Built largely from the preconstructed decks sold alongside a June 2018 paper set. Cards revealed so far →
24 Sep PLAY'SStory EPISODE 37 The in-game narrative chapter for the new set. The idol pack promotion also ends at that morning's maintenance.
26 Sep–4 Oct PLAY'SDeck-posting campaign on X Post a screenshot of a deck using set 37 cards with the tag ; fifteen entrants are drawn for one set 37 SR ticket each. Closes 4 October 23:59 JST. Open to residents of Japan only, and entrants must follow the official account.
October2026
1 Oct PLAY'SLast day to exchange Railgun skin chips Four chips from the Railgun collaboration sets buy one of five character skins. The exchange closes 23:59 JST; any chips left over are converted afterwards into supply chips, ten per chip.
1–31 Oct PLAY'SOctober sanctioned tournaments Runs 1 October 00:00 to 31 October 23:59 JST. Prizes depend on how many players each event draws. The winner's prize is an in-game promo of ; there is a participation promo too, and rubber playmats at some levels. In-game prizes are due around mid-to-late November, playmats around December.
1–21 Oct PLAY'SLegend Battle: Announced 28 September, running 1 October 17:00 to 21 October 23:59 JST. The solo mode against named rivals; six this time — , , , , and . The chapters unlock on a schedule: chapter one with the opening on 1 October, chapter two 3 October 05:00, chapter three 5 October 05:00, the ending 7 October 05:00. Tickets come from the event login bonus and missions, up to 100 across five days, and a ticket is only spent when you win. Points buy rewards including a special-art (PR) and a DMPP-37 SR ticket. On the stages both sides get a Legend Skill: the boss has one written around spells and , and the player gets one that summons a Master Hazard from outside the game for free.
8–17 Oct PLAY'SPLAY'S ARENA: Announced 1 October, starting 8 October 16:00 JST. Three stages: STAGE1 to 13 October 04:59, STAGE2 13 October 05:00 to 16 October 04:59, FINAL STAGE 16 October 05:00 to 17 October 23:59. Format is All Division with one registered deck and no card restrictions beyond cards being limited to one copy. STAGE1 and STAGE2 allow one entry a day on a ticket; the FINAL STAGE can be attempted once. Five wins in the FINAL STAGE grant a bye past STAGE1 and STAGE2 of the BATTLE ARENA first qualifier and a free first win there.
12 Oct PLAY'S配信者王決定戦バトルロイヤル2026 Announced on the official X account on 9 October, and still not on the news index as of 11 October, the day before it runs. A live stream on the official YouTube channel, starting 12 October 18:00 JST. The stream page gives the full title, which the first post did not: it is a battle royale, with livers against an opposing side called . Three entrants were named, all from : , and ; it is a returning annual event. It aired as scheduled — the publisher thanked viewers at about 23:25 that night — and announced the seventh collaboration during the broadcast. Who was on the opposing side, and how the battle royale was played, were never set out in any text source this site can reach; both were presumably shown on the stream, which this site has not watched.
ended 15 Oct PLAY'SRanked season: Ended 15 October 23:59 JST, per the official account on 13 October. Season rewards needed five wins in a format, and were paid against the highest rank reached in that format. The season was named after a card, which is also the name of a deck — so player posts using it may mean either; see the page on that. It never appeared on the news index.
16 Oct – 15 Nov PLAY'SRanked season: 16 October 00:00 to 15 November 23:59 JST. Documented on the news index, unlike the season before it. Rewards are per format and need five wins in that format — not five across both. Reaching grants a protect and a playmat, and the protect, playmat and title are each awarded only once even when the rank is reached in both divisions. The pack ticket in the reward table is whichever / pack is newest when the season ends, collaboration sets excluded. This season is named after a card too, and that card is a collaboration PR released in the same week, so the name is ambiguous in the way the last one was.
16 Oct – 15 Nov PLAY'SQuick Pick season 60 Same window as the ranked season. Entry costs 200 gold, 200 gems or one ticket, with no cap on attempts; one entry gives up to five duels. A deck is built over fifteen rounds: each round offers card sets of two cards, one set is chosen, and that makes thirty cards. How many sets are offered per round is not stated. The pool is drawn from eleven named products, and basic cards are not offered this season.
17 Oct PaperBigDM26-EX4 — Dueking FOREVER 2026 "Kirifuda Fumetsu!!" The annual Dueking compilation, this year carrying 25th anniversary weight.
Oct, est. PLAY'SClient update: and random skins Announced in the 12 October broadcast as planned for this month, with no date. Two features: , a mode that teaches a chosen topic through play, and , which picks a skin per match from the ones a player has favourited. Neither is on the news index and neither has been announced as shipped as of 17 October.
22 Oct PLAY'S collaboration, seventh Announced during the 12 October broadcast with no date; 17 October gave it as 22 October, in a countdown post five days out. Five members are named: , , , and . Cards and skins are being revealed one member a day on X from 15 October — on the 15th, on the 16th, on the 17th — under the product name . None of it is on the news index; all of it is X only. That is a longer silence than the comparable one: the Railgun collaboration was revealed on 23 August and its first official notice went up on 25 August, two days later. This one was revealed on 12 October and had nothing on the news index six days later, four days before it opens.

The same broadcast stated more than the five names. The product is , pitched at beginners, carrying PR cards said to pair with a separate . Each member has a product code of their own, printed on the box in the card-list images: is DMPC-14, is DMPC-17 and is DMPC-18. The codes do not follow the reveal order, and the two still unrevealed have not been seen. For comparison, the Railgun collaboration in August ran to . There is a theme song, “Seize The Tomorrow”, by and , written by , composed by and produced by eMPIRE SOUND SYSTeMS. The skins and cards from the sixth collaboration return alongside it.

PR cards named so far, two a day: — and ; — and ; — and . and are still to come. The per-member card lists are posted as 680-pixel images and the individual card names in them are not legible at that size, so only the two PR cards named in each day's text are recorded here.
26–31 Oct PLAY'SBigBATTLE ARENA 2026 AUTUMN — first qualifying round In the game's own BATTLE ARENA mode. STAGE1 26 October 17:00 to 29 October 04:59, STAGE2 to 31 October 04:59, FINAL STAGE 31 October 12:00 to 23:59, all planned times. Format is All Division, with and cards limited to one copy. Registration lets you use every normal card in the format, including cards you do not own, with some promos excluded. Entry requires agreeing to the tournament rules, among them being resident in Japan and 15 or older with compulsory education completed.
November2026
7 Nov PaperDM26-EX5 — Shown during the 12 October PLAY'S broadcast with no date. The product page now gives it: 7 November 2026, 385 yen a pack and 6,160 yen a box, six cards a pack and sixteen packs a box, two foils in every pack. This is a paper set, not a PLAY'S one — the entry was filed under PLAY'S here until the product code appeared. It is the crossover in the other direction: cards that were made for printed on paper, alongside reprints and new cards, with PLAY'S characters on the art.

Every box carries a serial code for in-game items: one of a title, a four-card prize set, a playmat or a protect, drawn by lottery rather than chosen. A code can be entered once, an account can claim four, and the fifth code onward gives ten supply chips instead. Entering a code needs a free アプリ外課金 registration. The card list is marked and is not out yet.

Three posts in four minutes of that broadcast covered its secret cards: secret cards carrying PLAY'S characters generally, then a signed one by , who voices , then a signed one by , who voices . How many signed cards there are in total was not stated. Both are voice actors for characters of this game, not members, and the publisher has still never said the pack and the collaboration are connected.
8 Nov PLAY'SBATTLE ARENA 2026 AUTUMN — second qualifying round Online, 12:00 to 21:00 JST. Players who clear the first qualifier are entered automatically. Double elimination over four to seven rounds depending on the size of the field, then up to 64 players on zero or one loss play three rounds of single elimination, every match Best of 1. Decks are registered 1 November 18:00 to 7 November 23:59, one deck, and cannot be changed afterwards.
21 Nov PLAY'SBigBATTLE ARENA 2026 AUTUMN — finals Eight players, Best of 3, three rounds of single elimination, each entrant registering two decks and choosing either one for each match. 08:00 to 22:00 JST at a studio in Tokyo, offline, planned for live broadcast on the official YouTube programme. Deck registration 9 November 18:00 to 20 November 23:59.
21 Nov PaperDM26-BD1 — The November deck product, now dated: 21 November 2026, 7,700 yen. Sixty-five cards — a forty-card built deck plus twenty-five Duepa change cards — with a two-card Secret Saga pack and an instruction sheet on top, so sixty-seven cards in all, every one foil. The Secret Saga pack holds two of seven at random, changed from one card last year. Taking five cards out of the forty and adding the twenty-five makes a sixty-card Duepa Party deck. A special-illustration version of the deck's finisher is inserted very rarely. Preorders opened 17 October.
est. PLAY'SRegular set Two-month cadence. In 2025 the November set landed on the 25th.
December2026 · anniversary
est. PLAY'SBigLEGEND OF PLAY'S 2027 — 7th anniversary set The anniversary product runs on its own annual track, back-to-back with the November regular set. Important for New Division: cards in an anniversary set stay ND-legal for a full year, even if the regular pack they originally came from has already rotated out.
Why the anniversary set matters more than it looks LEGEND OF PLAY'S reprints. A card whose original pack has rotated out of New Division becomes legal again if the same card appears in the anniversary product, and stays legal until the next anniversary. In practice this is the single biggest scheduled shift in the ND card pool each year, and it lands in December.

Beyond the dates

The 25th anniversary runs through 2027. Takara Tomy announced it in March 2026, and it has already produced a starter deck (DM26-SD1, April) and the current arc opener (DM26-RP1, April). Among the announced novelties: products containing cards of which only twenty-five copies exist worldwide.

PLAY'S published a full-year roadmap at the February 2026 PLAY'S Fes broadcast, covering card packs, official tournaments and offline events. The two-month set cadence has held all year, and the November-into-December double — regular set, then anniversary set — matches 2025.

Ongoing competitive structure continues regardless of the calendar: Battle Arena runs in-app qualifiers into online rounds into an offline studio final with prize money, and the Grand Master decider closes the year with Battle Arena winners only.

Sources

Estimated dates are marked as such and are inferred from the published cadence. They are not announcements and should not be planned around.

Updated 17–19 September Added the September broadcast slots, the story chapter, the set 37 window, and the November crossover pack. The set 37 row replaces a guess: in August this page predicted a regular set "around here" from the release cadence. It was right, which is not the same as it having been knowable.

19 Sep: the set 37 date is no longer an estimate — the publisher announced 24 September. 23 Sep: a maintenance window was announced for the morning. 24 Sep: the published window is 9:00–17:00 JST — half an hour earlier than first given, and a long one. The set, the rotation and the end of the idol promotion all take effect across it.
Updated 29 September Added four items from the publisher's notices of 26 and 28 September: the deck-posting campaign, the 1 October skin-chip deadline, the October sanctioned tournaments and the October Legend Battle. The Legend Battle is an announcement of dates, not a started event, and is marked that way. The English name of the tournament winner's card has not been checked against the community patch, so it is given in Japanese.
Updated 3 October Three announcements went up on 1 October and are now in the table: PLAY'S ARENA , the BATTLE ARENA 2026 AUTUMN schedule through to the 21 November finals, and the full Legend Battle post. The last of those corrects something this page had wrong: the sixth rival is , which this page had romanised as a different name, so all six are now given in Japanese.

Both competitive events are All Division. The encounter-rate coverage on this site is New Division, so it does not describe the field either of them will be played in.
Updated 10–11 October One entry added: the 12 October stream. It is still on the official X account and the stream page only — there is no page for it on the news index on the day before it runs, so the entry carries what those two state and nothing else. The 11 October pass filled in two things the first post had left open, the format and where it is shown, and left open the two it still does not answer. This page has been wrong before by filling in around an announcement post, and the gaps are left as gaps.

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