$100k 2022 Eternal World Championship Series!

$100k 2022 Eternal World Championship Series!

This past February, the 2021 Eternal® Organized Play season crowned a new champion as theovermaster battled through a field of the best in the game to take home the $15,000 first prize and the right to be called your Eternal World Champion.

Now it’s time to look ahead to the future and what’s in store for Eternal Organized Play in 2022 and beyond…starting with next season’s $100,000 prize pool!

We’re always looking to improve Eternal Organized Play, to make it more accessible and exciting for new, veteran, and returning players alike.

This past season saw the expansion of the Eternal $5k Open tournament series, the introduction of Mastery Medallions to recognize sustained competitive achievement, and a renewed commitment to Community Tournaments as a path to qualification including the outstanding work of Tuesday Night Eternal.

For 2022, the Eternal World Championship Series returns with some spicy new twists…but first thing’s first:

The 2022 Eternal World Championship Series

Once again, Eternal players from around the world will compete for their share of a $100,000 prize pool across all events in the 2022 Eternal World Championship Series!

Throughout the Organized Play season, 16 players will qualify for the Eternal World Championship to be held December 16-18, 2022.

Here’s how the seats will be divided:

Seat    Competitor
1 Defending World Champion theovermaster
2-10  9 Winners of monthly $5K Opens
11 1 Winner of TNE Spring Invitational
12 1 Last Chance Qualifier Winner  

13-16

 4 Seats to be announced

We’ll have more details on the remaining seats as the World Championship Series gets underway, including opportunities for community event organizers to participate.

2022 $5k Opens

$5,000 will be on the line in an Open tournament each month, with formats rotating between Throne, Expedition, and Draft. Each of the nine Open events will qualify the winner for a seat at the World Championship!

These events are completely open to the public–you don’t need to achieve a certain rank on the ladder or otherwise qualify for these events, and the Opens are in-client, under the “Events” tab during the weekend in question, so they’re easy to find and don’t involve dealing with any 3rd parties.

Many of the 2021 Worlds competitors were either relatively new to the game or hadn’t played in many Opens prior to qualifying, so these Opens are a great opportunity for players of all experience levels to compete for cash prizes and qualify for the 2022 World Championships.

Open Runs are played Friday and/or Saturday, with runs played at the player’s leisure–no need to block off a chunk of time, and you can play your matches all at once or over time, so long as you complete your run before the end of Saturday. If you achieve the minimum record (more on that below), you advance to Sunday, which is a single-elimination bracket tournament with the winner receiving cash prizes and a seat at the World Championships.

Each Open Run participant receives four copies of an exclusive alt-art card just for participating, along with boosters and additional prizes based on record, so these events are great value no matter your experience level.

Sunday’s play is best-of-3, single elimination matches, with additional prizes given out based on record, including cash prizes for everyone who makes the Top 4. Sunday’s action is covered live at twitch.tv/direwolfdigital, where you can check out the game’s best players compete for a shot at the World Championships.

Cash Prizes

Each Open will award $5,000 in prizes! Here’s how the pool breaks out:

___Finish_____    Finals Prizes
1st Worlds Invite & $1,500!
2nd  $1,000
3rd-4th
 $650
5th-8th
 $300

Players who reach the Top 4 of more than one Open will receive a World Championship invite. Several competitors reached the World Championships in 2021 through this path, so even if you don’t win one of the Opens you can qualify through consistent finishes.

The 2022 Organized Play season continues June 24-26 with the Krogar’s Choice $5K Expedition Open!

Here’s everything you need to know to participate:

Open Structure

For the 2022 season, we are making a few changes to how Open Runs are structured:

New!  Open runs are 14 games. Win 10 of those games, and you qualify for the Finals on Sunday!

New! Each player may do up to two Open Runs. Only your best record of the two is counted toward advancing to Sunday’s play.

The Finals are played on Sunday and are single-elimination, best-of-three matches, with a number of rounds determined by the number of players who qualify by earning 10 wins.

New! In previous seasons, our Sunday Opens had exactly 64 players in them, since advancing was based on Open Run standings, not a predetermined number of wins. Since we are moving to a “10-Win” model, the number of players that will advance to Sunday will be variable.

In the event an additional round of play is needed, some players will play an additional single-elimination round while others receive a bye. Byes will be allocated based first on Open Run Standings, and second on Master rankings, with the highest ranking players receiving a bye. A player’s Master ranking is the highest of either the current month or previous month’s Master rank in the format in question.

Mastery Medallions

Mastery Medallions return for the 2022 Organized Play season. Reach Master rank in Throne, Draft or Expedition, and you’ll earn a Mastery Medallion for that month and the month following. You can find your Mastery Medallions in the bottom right corner of your Profile screen, shown below, and clicking on the Medallion will show more information about upcoming Opens and other Organized Play information.

New! Your Mastery Medallion now earns you one free win in your Open runs, and upgrades the alt-art rewards from the event to Premium!

Between a free win in the Open Runs, a potential bye on Sunday, and premium alternate-art cards, it’s never been a better time to hit the ranked ladder and try to achieve the rank of Master.

Organized Play Dates

Time to break out those calendars! Here are all of the qualifying events taking place in the 2022 Eternal Organized Play season:


Date

Format
March 25-27Expedition
April 22-24Draft
May 27-29Throne
June 24-26Expedition
July 29-31Draft
August 26-28Throne
September 23-25Expedition
October 28-30Draft
November 18-19Throne
December 2-3Last Chance Qualifier (Invitation Only)
December 16-18Eternal World Championship (Invitation Only)

All dates subject to change.

Last Chance Qualifier

One seat at the Eternal World Championship will be awarded via a special invitation-only Last Chance Qualifier event taking place November 12-13, 2022. The only requirement is to have made it to at least one Open Final during the year, so just making it to Sunday once gives you an additional shot at qualifying towards the end of the season.

Eternal Organized Play is back and better than ever as we head into the 2022 season!  We’ll see you May 27-29 as we send the next player to the Eternal World Championship!

…how about you?