fbpx

Bandai Namco & Twitch Announces Tekken World Tour 2019 With US$185,000 Prize Pool

The Tekken World Tour 2019 is back for its third iteration and its bringing several improvements to the tournament this year. Including more international matches, more categories for players to score Tekken World Tour ranking points with, and a bigger prize pool — US$185,000.

Advertisement ▼

For those not in the know, the Tekken World Tour 2019 is the official tournament for Tekken 7 and is hosted by the game’s developer Bandai Namco Entertainment Asia, and the live-streaming platform Twitch. While it was previously known as the King of The Iron Fist Tournament series, in 2017 it evolved into the tournament we know today.

Kicking off on April 20th in Lyon, France, the Tekken World Tour 2019 will continue throughout the year with matches happening in Germany, Poland, Sweden, Australia, and the United Kingdom. For the first time, matches will also be taking place in Dubai, South Africa, and Greece.

The matches will culminate in the Tekken World Tour Finals happening in Bangkok, with a final prize pool of US$100,000 and US$30,000 set aside for the overall champion. The date for the Finals has yet to be announced.

Those wishing to catch the matches live will be able to do so via their Twitch app or on the Twitch website.

Here is more information on the tournament categories present in Tekken World Tour 2019.


Master+ and Master

The Master+ is the highest value tournament category in the Tekken World Tour, giving winners a significant amount of ranking points should they win. Ranking points will be award from 1st to 49th place and the player’s top three tournament results will contribute towards their Leaderboard ranking. The Master+ tournament will be held exclusively at the Evolution Championship Series (Evo) in Las Vegas from August 2 to 4.

On the other hand, the Master tournament category is expected to draw top-tier competitors throughout the world, with them all vying to place within the top 25 positions in order to be awarded Ranking Points. Much like the Master+, a player’s top three tournament results will count towards their overall Leaderboard ranking.


Challenger

According to their official website, the Challenger tournaments will “take place in exciting locations around the world” and award standard Ranking Points to 1st through 13th Place. These regional tournaments will focus on offering players who were not able to compete in the Master tournaments a chance to gain Ranking Points and once again, the best three tournament results count towards the player’s Leaderboard ranking.


Dojo

Happening for the first time in 2019, the Dojo tournament category will allow organizers around the world to apply for their offline tournaments to be recognized by Tekken World Tour. Hence players who compete in the Dojo will also be award Ranking Points. These grassroots matches will allow players who are unable to travel internationally to compete in the other categories to earn some points for the tournament.

The points award in Dojo tournaments will scale according to the tournament size, with the minimum number of players needed being 16, hence the bigger the competition, the better the reward. The Dojo tournaments will award Ranking Points for players from 1st to 9th place.

In an email interview with Kotaku, Twitch’s Esports Product Manager Richard Thiher says that,

“Community is at the core of competitive gaming and the Tekken 7 fandom. For 2019, Bandai Namco and Twitch wanted a sound way to integrate and recognize both the world’s largest fighting game tournament and the many smaller grassroots tournaments found in cities across the globe, thus the inclusion of Evo and creation of Dojo events.”

Below is a simple summary of how the Ranking system in the Tekken World Tour works,

Players will earn Ranking Points based on their tournament placements. There will be a  Leaderboard used to establish a Player’s rank based on the total Points they earned from their 10 best tournament placements. The Leaderboard recognises a player’s 10 best placement scores (which includes three Master+ or Master tournaments, three Challenger tournaments, and four Dojo tournaments). This is a deliberate move by the organisers to help reduce “travel fatigue” among players as they no longer have to continue attending events throughout the year to maintain their score.

Rangchu, the winner of the Tekken World Tour 2018.

Players will be able to compete in as many tournaments as they want to earn higher placements. However, once the players have gotten the highest score in the Master or Challenger tournament thrice, and the highest score in the Dojo placements four times, they will no longer be able to make changes to their ranking. 

At the end of the Tekken World Tourthe 19 highest ranked players will be invited to the Tekken World Tour finals in Bangkok, Thailand.