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Vainglory Summer esports: Introducing ‘The Evil 8’

Vainglory Summer esports: Introducing ‘The Evil 8’

  • Vainglory
  • |
  • Jun 28, 2016

Looking to apply for a Summer tournament? Visit vaingloryesports.com now.

In less than a year, Vainglory has exploded in competitive popularity, becoming the No. 1 touchscreen esport in the world. It has seen home-grown professional teams such as Hammers eSports and GankStars achieve championships and seen a wave of multi-sport professional organizations arrive, including Team Secret, G2 eSports, SK Gaming, Mousesports and Team SoloMid. And most recently, Super Evil Megacorp inked a three-year, multi-million dollar partnership with Twitch to expand Vainglory as an esport while announcing that esports fans had watched 150 million minutes of Vainglory on Twitch in 2015.

It’s crazy to think not long ago, Vainglory didn’t even have a spectator mode — much less having tournaments on Korean television or selling out a packed Hollywood venue for a Live Championship event.

And now, thanks to the amazing support of the Vainglory Community, we’re ready to kick off a new esports structure that reflects our rapid growth. Playing off our company name, we’re calling it the ‘Evil 8,’ part of the Vainglory Summer Season presented by Amazon Appstore.


INTRODUCING ‘THE EVIL 8’ & ‘CHALLENGERS’ LEAGUES

The Evil 8 takes the top eight teams in North America and Europe respectively and separates them into a new Vainglory league. These teams will play each other in eight-team tournaments each weekend of Summer season, accumulating points. Parallel to this league, all other Vainglory competitive teams will play in community Challengers, run during Summer by independent organizations VGL and VIS. Challengers will play 32-team bracket tournaments each Tuesday/Wednesday with an application process and format that teams are used to from prior seasons.

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The benefits for players and fans of the Summer esports structure are immense:

  • The region’s best teams will play each other much more often, giving viewers on a weekly basis the match quality and excitement they’ve come to expect only from the end-of-season Live Championships.
  • New and developing teams will no longer run into a “Quarterfinals brick wall” where they’re virtually guaranteed to lose upon being matched against an experienced pro org.
  • By clearing out the top eight, many more teams will be able to win whole tournaments, which is critical to team maturation, growth and earning prize money!

CHALLENGE BATTLES

That said, teams who prove their quality week after week will not be limited to only playing in Challengers. At midseason and near end-of season, we’ll hold high-stakes Challenge Battles where the top three teams in Challengers (based on points earned in Challengers tournaments) will battle the bottom three teams from the Evil 8 (based on Evil 8 points standings) in head-to-head best-of-five showdowns. If the Challenger team wins, they knock the Evil 8 team into Challengers and assume their spot in the Top 8 league.


‘EVIL 8’ SPLITS

The Evil 8 season will be broken up into two splits. At the end of each split will be a Challenge Battle. Evil 8 points are wiped out after Split 1, so a Challenger team entering Split 2 is at no disadvantage whatsoever in the second half of the Evil 8 season.


SUMMER LIVE CHAMPIONSHIPS

There are two paths to qualifying for the Summer Live Championships:

  • Evil 8 teams that finish in the top five of Split 2 are guaranteed a spot.
  • End-of-season Challenge Battle winners (whether from bottom three of Evil 8 or top three of Challengers) are guaranteed a spot.

After the end-of-season Challenge Battles will be a “Seeding Week,” which will give any newly promoted teams an opportunity to improve their championship tournament seed. The combined points from Evil 8 Split 2 and Seeding Week will determine the final Summer Live Championship seeding.  


WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

The first-ever official Vainglory World Championships will happen during Autumn season, featuring the world’s best 12 teams based on region and performance over the past esports year.


HOW TO PARTICIPATE IN THE VGL & VIS ‘CHALLENGERS’ LEAGUE

  • Go to vaingloryesports.com every week during Summer season to apply for the upcoming 32-team bracket tournament.
  • You do not have to track whether VGL or VIS is operating that week; simply go to vaingloryesports.com where there will be a very clear APPLY NOW button for the next week of play.
  • Be sure to apply each week by entering your in-game team! Playing during Week 1 does not guarantee a spot in future tournaments.
  • Selections for each 32-team tournament will be based on the Ranked player rating of the top three players of each in-game team, plus past performance as a secondary criteria. (This is the same criteria used in past seasons.) While VGL and VIS Challenger tournaments will be run independently, SEMC/Twitch will solely handle all team selections based on the criteria above as an extra service to help ensure the most accurate, informed selections possible.

WHERE TO WATCH

All ‘Evil 8’ broadcasts can be watched on twitch.tv/vainglory. Challengers will be broadcasted on VGL and VIS channels. Stay tuned for a full Summer season schedule and broadcast listings.


‘Evil 8’ North America – Full Summer Schedule

https://www.vainglorygame.com/news/evil-8-north-america-full-summer-schedule-unveiled/


‘Evil 8’ Europe – Full Summer Schedule

https://www.vainglorygame.com/news/evil-8-europe-full-summer-schedule-announced


MORE INFORMATION

Details, schedules, tournament registration and news will always be posted on vaingloryesports.com. Bookmark it!

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It’s a brand-new day in Vainglory eSports. Will three-time European Champion Team Secret make it four straight? Will North American champs Hammers Velocity repeat? Their path will be that much more perilous in the age of the ‘Evil 8.’