The Smite championship commences today in a battle of wills for first place. The prize pool is 1 Million USD. The first day of matches are part of a double elimination bracket where the top 6 teams move on to the knock-out round and then onto single elimination matches to place into the quarter finals. 2 teams are already placed into the quarter finals due to winning their seeding; Cloud 9 G2A and Paradigm Gaming, who are the North American and European champions.
The other teams who will be facing off are 6 teams from North America, Europe, China, Brazil, Latin America, and Oceania. The teams are either their respective region’s runner-ups or champions. Enemy, Epsilon Esports, Fnatic, OMG B, QG, Pain Gaming, Isurus Gaming, and Avant Garde are the teams from the rest of the world who will be attempting to make it to the Quarter Finals. Expect superb showings from OMG B and Fnatic because China has always enjoyed a strong presence on the international stage of Esports.
The total purse is 1 Million USD spread amongst the different placements of teams. First place will net themselves $500,000, while second place will win $230,000. Third and fourth place will receive $75,000 apiece. 5th-8th place will rake in $25,000. The rest of the teams take in $10,000 apiece. Hi-Rez Studios is the company organizing the Championship for the PC side of Smite which can be played on both Xbox one and PC. There will be a smaller tournament held for the Xbox side of the game with a prize pool of $175,000 with the first place team winning $75,000 USD. The Xbox tournament will be an open invitational. This means any team can enter and have a chance to win!
The tournament begins at 11am with the opening ceremony on January 7th and will conclude on January 10th with an award ceremony at 8pm for the winners. This looks to be an interesting field of teams with some hard fought rounds. The pressure of being on an international stage with a large prize pool will make the matches extremely fun to watch. Catch it all on www.twitch.tv/smitegame.