Riot Games has revealed its esports plans for auto-battler Teamfight Tactics. The Teamfight Tactics: Galaxies Championship will feature 16 players from across the world competing for a $200K USD prize pool later this year. Players will earn their place in the event through regional qualifiers in North America, China, Europe, Brazil, South Korea, and Latin America.
Each region will be responsible for the format and operation of its qualifier, with those details to be made available at a later date. Format and scoring systems for the Championship have also not yet been revealed.
Riot Games launched Teamfight Tactics in mid-2019 as one of the early arrivals to the auto-battler genre, which had gained notoriety earlier that year due to the popularity of a fan-created Dota 2 game mode called Dota Auto Chess. A mobile version of Teamfight Tactics was released last month, putting the game in league with Hearthstone as one of the few esports titles that shares a player base across PC and mobile. According to Riot, the game has reached 80M players globally.
Last year, Riot hosted three invitational tournaments for Teamfight Tactics which were a mixture of competition and influencer-driven exhibition for the game. This new Championship will be the first fully open and merit-based official tournament since its release, and one of the first of that nature in the auto-battler genre. Late last year, the original Auto Chess developer, Drodo Studio, hosted a $1M tournament for its mobile-focused title of the same name.
