Hi Christian, Thank you for your attention!
(1) I checked the patch at https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?att=1;bug=973038;filename=diff-auto.txt;msg=14 on an amd64 machine. With that patch, as root, debci setup -b qemu -s sid -a amd64 autopkgtest -u debci -B autopkgtest -- qemu --efi /var/lib/debci/qemu/sid-amd64.img worked fine. (2) For arm emulation of autopkgtest-virt-qemu, I am in the mood of giving up. See https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=973484 if you have interest... Ryutaroh