End of 2025 Message Of Appreciation + What’s In Store for 2026?

This time last year, I shared my reflections on the highs and lows for Five Mics as well as what to expect for the road ahead. Let’s keep that tradition going as we prepare ourselves for the new year.

We accomplished A LOT together in 2025! Below are a few highlights:

Successful Crowdfunding Campaign for Our First Booster Box Set

In August 2025 we successfully launched our preorder crowdfunding campaign for The Genesis, the first official booster box set for Five Mics!

As we speak, our booster box (and game accessories - e.g. card sleeves, playmats, etc.) are being produced in China. We’re in the process of our 2nd quality assurance review to ensure that everything looks perfect before we start mass production.

The ETA is still Q1 2026. More details as we get closer. Exciting times!

Official Partnerships with Local Retail Stores

At the start of 2025, we had zero retail partnerships. As of today, we have partnered with 6 stores that sell Five Mics within their brick-and-mortar locations. We’re beyond grateful for them and are excited to do more activations with them in the new year, especially once our booster boxes arrive.

Here’s the list below of our current retail partners:

• The Comic Den (Los Angeles, CA)

• Davis Cards & Games (Davis, CA)

• Game Post of San Francisco (San Francisco, CA) 

• It’s Your Move Games (Oakland, CA)

• Legends Comics & Games - Valley Fair (Santa Clara, CA)

• Legends Comics & Games - Oakridge (San Jose, CA)

For a visual depiction of our Physical Footprint, check out our page here: https://fivemics.io/blocks 

New Digital Client for Five Mics

Last year, we had to completely rehaul our digital infrastructure. Today, with a new development team, cleaner code, and the leaning in from our player base, we finally have a multiplayer digital client for Five Mics!

We still got a few bugs to clean up (new patch to release top of 2026), but just the fact that we have something that works (last year was looking bleak yall, I ain’t gonna front) is a blessing in itself!

To check out our digital sim, hit this link: https://fivemics.io/digital 

Birth of Our Block Runner Program

As Five Mics has spread and our community has grown, some players have been so passionate about the game that they’ve made it their mission to spread the word and teach everyone around them how to play Five Mics.

These people have become are our Block Runners. They embody the spirit of our game, know the rules just as well as I do, and spread our culture of fun to others on their block - whether at the nearby game store, comic con, coffee shop, or the break room at the office.

These are more than just players. They partner hand-in-hand with us to grow the Five Mics Physical Footprint. BIG LOVE to our 3 official block runners of 2025:

• Tai (Inland Empire)

• UncleTCG (DMV)

• xSage (Detroit)

If you wanna officially become a block runner (and gain the exclusive rewards that come with it) head to this link, and let's make it happen: https://fivemics.io/block-runner 

A Few Other 2025 Highlights:

• Five Mics Mini Tours – May 2025 and August 2025: We were on the road this year! Hitting up game stores and conventions, teaching people how to play Five Mics, speaking engagements, growing the community, racking miles, the whole thing.

  • One of my favorite moments was when a 9yr kid came to our table at Gen Con - HE ALREADY KNEW THE RULES (even though he never actually played the game before) - and preceded to beat other players 3x his age for ~1 hour.

• Five Mics Starter Deck Tournament: We had an idea to take our 5 starter decks and have them compete against each other to see which one would be crowned the “GOAT”. Really, we just wanted to interactively show people how to play the game + how fun Five Mics actually is once you do start playing. If you wanna watch the matchoffs, here’s the tournament link.

• D$C Battle League, Vol. 1: We had our first webcam tournament series in October-November 2025, culminating in a Championship Match between Kenny The Geek and UncleTCG. UncleTCG ended up clinching the victory and went undefeated the entire league with his innovative custom deck, which incorporates ALL 5 STYLES of the game!

  • Check out UncleTCG’s YouTube video here profiling his winning deck and breaking down his deckbuilding choices.

The team and I are logging off for the rest of the year to spend time with our loved ones and recharging. What are some things to look out for though in 2026? Five things:

1. The Genesis: our FIRST booster box set

The Genesis will open doors to SO many more opportunities for our community that we haven’t had up to this point, including:

• More custom deckbuilding and individualized expression due to the additional 180+ cards added to the game

• Tournament prizing

• Collectible chase cards - including Epic Rares, Super Rares, and Remix Rares

• A Five Mics Soundtrack (this is a hip-hop trading card game)

• Real NIL hip-hop artists that will also be in the game as playable cards!

2. Five Mics Central: our proprietary all-in-one player portal

Over the last couple months, we’ve been behind the scenes building Five Mics Central, which you can think of as an "all-in-one community portal", where you have an individual player account and can:

• Keep track of your entire Five Mics card collection

• Build decks and share/export them publicly with other players

• Gain achievement badges for hitting Five Mics milestones

• Earn gold coin from Five Mics-related activities - e.g. playing events, tournament placements, log-in streaks, etc. - which can be exchanged for real rewards (e.g. booster packs, merch, etc.)

• Register for official Five Mics tournaments - both IRL and digital

• Advance on our player leaderboard

• And more!

More to come in 2026!

3. Expanding our Block Runner Program

We are deepening our partnership with our block runners and view this relationship as key to our block-by-block expansion. As such, we will be investing more in scouting, recruiting, equipping, and rewarding our block runners in the new year.

4. Continuing the D$C Battle League

The feedback was unanimous: do MORE D$C Battle Leagues! Also, ways to expand include: stream tournaments, have themed competitions, cash prizes, etc. We took stock and are looking forward to Vol. 2 once the booster boxes arrive!

5. Advancing the Digital Client

Even as the physical version of our game catches fire, we still intend on enabling our game to be played digitally (it was built to do both). So, we will continue to advance our digital build and bring it as close to parity with physical as possible (remember, we’re a small team with a big dream 💜).

———

That’s all I got for now. It’s been a great year. We did a lot with a little, and still our community grows by the day.

It’s been wild too any time I meet someone new that says, “I heard of Five Mics: The Hip-Hop Trading Card Game before” - because we spend ZERO dollars on ads. Everything you see here has been organic grassroots growth. Keep it hip-hop, baby!

If you wanna stay tapped in with us, jump into our Discord or Reddit. Also, if you haven’t yet (or if you wanna bless someone you know), grab some Five Mics starter decks and/or preorder The Genesis booster box today!

And with all that said, last but not least, on behalf of everyone on the Five Mics team, THANK YOU! Couldn’t do this without you. Happy holidays, and see you in the new year! 🫡

- Ace, Founder & CEO