The Chinese event organizer has announced the next Funspark event. Which will have a grand prize pool of $630,000, with $300,000 of that reserved for the Grand Final.
Funspark ULTI will have a new circuit for the 2021 season, which will be split into two regions, Asia & Europe. Running from March to December, in both regions they'll be two seasons. Each season starts with two tournaments, which will be GSL group stages leading to a single-elimination bracket. In these tournaments teams compete for points, to qualify to move forward to the next stage, which will be a double-elimination event,
Funspark will hope to host the Grand Final on a LAN environment, after the pandemic called off the 2020 event indefinitely, with the early stages likely to be held in the online manner we've become accustomed to.
Funspark has also released the planned dates for all the events in the circuit, as well some initial teams that'll feature, with more to join them later on through invites.
The following dates are for the Europe circuit;
Regional 1 - March 29rd - April 11th
Regional 2 - May 10th - May 23rd
Playoff 1 - June 14th - June 20th
Regional 3 - September 13th - 26th
Regional 4 - November 1st - 14th
Playoff 2 - November 29th - December 5th
Moving over to Asia now, the dates are as follows;
Regional Series 1 - March 29th - April 11th
Regional Series 2 - May 24th - June 6th
Playoff 1 - June 21-27
Regional Series 3 - September 27th - October 10th
Regional Series 4 - November 15th -28th
Playoff 2 - December 6-12
This will follow up to the Grand Final, which is a date to be confirmed in December.
Now, onto the teams. Funspark has announced some teams for the first regional series in both areas. In Asia especially, further teams can qualify through a series of open events throughout the year. The announced teams are as follows;
Europe
- Sinners
- Dignitas
- LDLC
- Movistar Riders
- Lyngby Vikings
- Sprout
- MAD Lions
- ENCE
- HAVU
- HellRaisers
- K23
- SAW
- TeamOne
- AGO
- Winstrike
- Nemiga
Asia
- TYLOO
- Lynn Vision
- TCG
- Reece
- Wings Up
- Invictus
- Let's Quit
- Newhappy
- a further 8 teams will join the Asia side through open qualification
The prize pool, tolling $630,000 will be split between all events. However no less than $300,000 will be saved for the Grand Final, so there's big prize money on the card of whomever gets that far!
