Riot Games Reveals Teamfight Tactics: Galaxies Championship
Teamfight Tactics has been a monumental success for League of Legends developer Riot Games since launching last summer. Fans have eagerly been awaiting news on the company’s plans for the game’s esports scene. After nearly a year of mostly Twitch Rivals events with popular streamers, the wait is finally over, and Riot has officially unveiled their vision for the pro scene with the announcement of the Teamfight Tactics: Galaxies Championship.
Championship, Regional Qualifiers, and Ladder Placement
The new global tournament is set to take place at the end of the current Galaxies set. It will feature the 16 top players from eight different regions battle it out for part of the $200,000 prize pool Riot is putting up for it. To qualify, players must compete at their servers Regional Finals Qualification, with the top players from the tournament advancing to the Grand Final. The amount sent per region varies, with China and the combined Europe/CIS/Middle East regions sending three apiece, Korea, North America, Latin America, and Brazil sending two apiece, and Japan and Turkey sending one representative each.
Each region will have its own combination of tournaments and ladder placement to determine who will represent them in the championship. While we don’t know the exact details for most regions at this moment, the announcement did reveal the process for the North American region. NA will choose its representatives through a 16-player regional final set to take place mid-August. Qualifications will begin in the first week of May.
Riot will take a snapshot of the ranked ladder every week and rewarding qualification points depending on placement at the time, with the top ten players in terms of points earned at the end of July advancing to the regional qualifier. Two other spots will be given through points earned through a series of online tournaments Riot is planning to host, starting in May, as a beta launch of their tournament circuit system, while the last four spots will be given through partnered qualifying events set for June and July.
More Like CS:GO Than League of Legends
The championship and regional qualifying system harken back to the system League of Legends used to utilize to qualifying teams to Worlds before the creation of regional leagues when tournament placement accumulated points to qualify teams for the championship tournament, a system still used today by fellow esport CS:GO.
The popular Valve shooter utilizes a system of smaller events to qualify teams for regional minors to determine regional representatives for the larger Major events, the game’s equivalent of a world championship, every six months or so. Unlike TFT, however, top-performing teams from the past Major and winners of specific events can qualify directly to the Major without having to go through these regional tournaments, though the game could adopt a similar system after its first championship or two.
With players across PC and mobile, it’ll be incredibly exciting to watch the qualification process and finally get to see some top-level players get their chance in the spotlight, as well as what strategies they’ll come up with to earn their way to the grand prize. We’ll continue to bring you coverage of the Teamfight Tactics: Galaxies Championship as more information about the tournaments and qualifiers drop later this month, including coverage of the competitive circuit as it kicks off in May, so stay tuned!
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