Nintendo’s MOBA starts its first tournament season at the end of February. Anyone can take part. The only requirement: four players.
The time has come: After Nintendo developed the “MOBA light” Pokémon UNITE in cooperation with gaming behemoth Tencent, the first eSports season is now beginning.
From the end of February, all players aged 16 and over who can field a team of five people will have the opportunity to take part in monthly qualification cups. The games can be played both with the smartphone and on the Switch. The kick-off is on 19 and 20 February, with the first monthly final taking place on the 26th.
This is how Pokémon Unite’s tournament structure is set up
Points are awarded for placing in the Qualifying Cup. The teams with the most Championship Points (CP) qualify for the monthly finals event.
From here on it gets more complicated. To reach the next level up – the Regionals for all of Europe – there are different options: A team wins one of the monthly Cups – for this there are 12 places at the Regionals.
The eight teams that have won the most CP by June are also qualified. Rounding out the regionals will be the top four from the May tournament. So there are a few options to get there.
Nintendo assigns the CP earned in the team to each player individually – this should make switching possible.
The top two European teams from the regionals then travel to the World Championships in London to face teams from America, Japan, Korea, Oceania and Asia. The tournaments are usually played in a double-elimination format.
Each team can therefore afford to lose before being knocked out of the tournament. The Aeos Cup in April has a group stage first, as do the regionals.
Nintendo is using Battlefy to run the tournament. According to the game maker, “the registration period starts soon. Details will be on the official site soon.” You can find the registration here.
Lots of prize money for new series
Unusually for Nintendo, the Japanese gaming company and Chinese gaming giant Tencent are throwing a total of over one million US dollars in prize money into the pool. This will be distributed across all tournaments from the Regionals and the Aeos Cup onwards. In the remaining qualifiers, there are only tickets to the regionals to be won.
The World Champion team will win 100,000 US dollars, the Regional Champion will receive 20,000 and in the Aeos Cup there will be 10,000 for the winner. The sum is always divided among the five team members. In total, there is 500,000 US dollars in the pool for the World Championships, 50,000 for the Regionals and 25,000 for the Aeos Cup.
Nintendo’s tournament series scores with its easy accessibility. All players need is a phone, or Switch, and four team members. There are no further ranking or qualification hurdles.
But beware, UNITE has been established for more than half a year, and as with all MOBAs, the start is still relatively easy, but at tournament level the mechanics want to be internalised.
But the same applies to the eSports tournament series as it does to the game itself: It’s free and fun: why not give it a try?
