After discussing with yasu, we've settled on a projected soft opening date of April 30th, exactly 3 years from the date we put Sakura on indefinite hiatus! If you're wondering, no, it's not a coincidence that we chose this specific date however it *is* a case of good timing that we happened to even be ready to re-open now so we could choose this day!!

Soft opening will take place over two weeks and end on May 14th @ 11:59 PM EDT (current TCG timezone) to give us a week to finish up as many of the decks that are donated during this period as possible, and more importantly: make sure everyone who participated and requested the deck they want for opening has that deck ready! More information about how soft opening will work will be posted on the forums and linked in an update on the site once it starts :)

We will then prepare for Sakura's official re-opening, which is currently scheduled to happen on May 24th, provided nothing goes wrong! You might think this is a weird date to choose but for those who know or remember, August 24th is actually the date Sakura first opened so we thought it'd be fun if 2.0 opened on the same day, although it's a different month! Additional information about opening will be posted closer to the date as well, likely during that week after soft open ends and re-opening starts.

REMINDERS

Don't forget—or if this is your first time hearing news about us re-opening—that if you are a returning member, we will be requiring proof of your previous progress (player name if it's changed since, join date, card count & worth, and currency counts) if you want to receive returning rewards when we re-open! This only applies to players who were still active at the time of us going on hiatus before however, so if you had quit and didn't rejoin, or were inactive by then, then you will be starting over from scratch regardless.

Returning players don't need to provide proof if you they don't want to or care about receiving those rewards though, or if you unfortunately lost your trade post over time! But for those who did and are interested in trying to rebuild some of what they had so they can at least receive a portion of what they could've earned (or just want to save/collect their custom graphics from before), we've compiled links and resources to help with that on our Discord under the Sakura category > #faq-and-help channel > pinned messages. You may ask for assistance with that there as well, if needed!

FOR CURRENT (AND PREVIOUS) STAFF:

With soft opening decided, there is now a deadline for informing us of any additional positions you want to take on, as we will be opening up hiring for the remaining positions to anyone interested when soft open starts! This also includes previous staff who somehow got missed when we were sending out messages - please let us know ASAP if you want to return and what you want to drop/keep from before. This deadline is April 29th but we may still take late messages on the 30th into consideration, if it's before we start soft open!

AND THAT'S ALL!

For now, at least - we will see you all again in a week's time to kick off soft open and get things started!!

Yes, you read that right! To cut to the chase: Sakura is coming back soon!!!!!

A lot of things happened in my life since the end of the last year which has resulted in me currently being unemployed (of my own will so don't worry lol), so I've been using a lot of that free time to work on Sakura more - to the point that it is now almost ready to open! With the help of Stack, managing the TCG should be a lot easier now so if (when) I get a new job, I hopefully won't have too many difficulties keeping Sakura open even if I get busy.

yasu will be joining me as well, of course! She's much more busier than I am but she'll still be around to help out like before when she's available. We're really excited to bring back Sakura after three long years of being on an indefinite hiatus, and can't wait to officially re-open!

WHAT'S NEXT?

That being said, we aren't quite ready to open yet. There's still things left to do, most of which involves writing and setting up everything on the forums so once soft opening starts, we can fully focus on handling that and making decks to be ready for the grand re-opening! But basically everything else we could need at the moment is done and tested, so once those things are taken care of, we can soft open – which at the moment, is currently being projected for the end of April (which also happens to be when we put the TCG on hiatus LOL).

This date may still change but whenever we do soft open, it will be taking place solely on the forums (so actual TCG registration won't open yet which means no games, services, etc)! We plan on accepting donations for decks, as well as for link buttons & v2 trade meters during that limited time, both of which WILL earn you rewards once we officially open if you decide to submit any.

Please note, however, that participating during the soft opening DOES NOT grant you "prejoiner" status! This is solely reserved for original prejoiners from Sakura 1.0's run who re-join during Sakura 2.0—and were still members at the time we went on hiatus—whereas "veteran" status is for players who were a member at any point during Sakura 1.0's run and remained active as one when we went on hiatus. That's why we are referring to this phase as "soft opening" rather than another prejoin, to hopefully prevent any confusion!

Rest assured though that participating players during soft opening will be compensated with rewards once we re-open, on top of any other additional rewards you'll receive if you're a returning member. You just won't get a specific member status if you don't also meet the prior requirements already (which you can read more about in the guide)!

TO PREVIOUS MEMBERS:

Please keep a copy, take a screenshot, or otherwise make a back up of your current player info, card worth count, currency count, and your previous alias (if you've since changed what you go by)! You will need records of your past progress to earn returning rewards when we re-open, unless you just keep your original trade post in tact (then you won't need to do anything).

TO PREVIOUS STAFF:

In case any of you see this first before the message on Discord, we would like to know if you are interested in remaining one when we open! Please let us know if you want to stay (or not) and if yes then let us know what previous position(s) you had that you want to keep AND which you don't.

If you want to remain staff but don't want any of your old jobs, let us know as well! If there's any spots leftover after we sort out what everyone is keeping, taking, and/or dropping then we will offer what's remaining to staff without any positions first, and afterwards, the rest of the staff in case anyone wants to pick up more. Anything not assigned by soft opening will then be available for anyone else to apply for during that time!

AND FINALLY...

Please stay tuned for more details regarding soft opening, as well as the official grand re-opening, once we're ready to go! If you want to stay up to date even more, do join our Discord if you haven't yet; we post a lot of quick updates/announcements there first before anywhere else (as well as additional details and info. sometimes), and we likely won't advertise Sakura in other places until the grand re-opening - so you can only get news of the soft opening and during it if you're a member of the Discord and/or you check the site on your own. But feel free to tell your friends about Sakura, especially former members if you know any! We'd love to see anyone and everyone, whether they be returning members or brand new!!

Lastly, we just want to once again thank those of you who still have interest in Sakura and showed your enthusiasm at the first sign of of us rebuilding this TCG! It warms our heart knowing people still look forward to this TCG returning, so we hope to see you all during soft opening and/or official opening! ❤️