Just as the Apex Legends Global Series Split 1 Pro League was about to come to an end this weekend, the organisers have decided to call off the LAN event for Split 1 Playoffs. The emergent of the new COVID variant, Omicron, sparks fear over travel converns and it had become a global issue across several countries with escalating cases. It would be difficult to host the Apex Legends Split 1 LAN tournament with the risks of the current pandemic.
Electronic Arts published a statement to explain the situation and has changed the format of the Apex Legends Global Series Split 1 Playoffs into an online regional competition. The organisers have been monitoring the COVID situation closely and assessed the ongoing travel restrictions across the several countries. They also sought advice from the health officials such as the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organisation (WHO). Things did not bode well because allowing travel arrangements would pose a very challenging not only for the organisers but also jeopardise the health of participants, tournament staff and the Apex community. It became apparent that there were not able to sow their seeds of differences and would not only reap naught but discord and chaos for the trouble. Check out their message here.
The tournament for Split 1 Playoffs would be changed to five online regional tournaments. This meant that the original USD$1 million prize pool would be distributed across the five tournaments. The last major LAN tournament was in 2019 with a prize pool of USD$500,000 when Electronic Arts hosted the Apex Legends Preseason Invitational and TSM won the prestigious competition.
Apex Legends Global Series
Moving forward from the last major tournament, the Apex Legends Global Series adjusted its competitive landscape this year with the introduction of a Pro League format which welcomed both amateur and professional teams with its hybrid open qualifier and invitational format. For the ALGS Regional Pro Leagues, 40 of the top teams in each ALGS region will compete in a regular season of competition. The top teams will advance to the playoffs, and the bottom teams will defend their spot in the Pro League against the top teams from the ALGS Challenger Circuit.
ALGS Pro League’s original format and schedule
The top 20 teams in each region’s Pro League were directly invited to compete, the 21-24 seeds qualified via a preseason qualifier, and the rest of the teams qualified based on their cumulative points earned throughout the preseason qualifiers. The five core regions are North America, South America, Asia-Pacific (APAC) North, APAC South and Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA).
Former Split 1
Forty teams in each region will compete in the Split 1 regular season. Each team will play 36 games in the regular season, consisting of six consecutive games in a series. Each series will be played over the course of one day. After the pro league, the top 10 teams will qualify for the playoffs, the next 22 will stay in the Pro League for Split 2, and the bottom eight teams will have to fight for their spot in Pro League Split 2 against the top Challengers teams.
Revised Split 1
The Pro League will continue for each region. However, the playoffs will now split into 5 regions:
North America – Playoffs > Challenger (Circuit 1 / Circuit 2 / Circuit 3 / Circuit 4)
South America – Playoffs > Challenger (Circuit 1 / Circuit 2 / Circuit 3 / Circuit 4)
Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) – Playoffs > Challenger (Circuit 1 / Circuit 2 / Circuit 3 / Circuit 4)
APAC North – Playoffs > Challenger (Circuit 1 / Circuit 2 / Circuit 3 / Circuit 4)
APAC South – Playoffs > Challenger (Circuit 1 / Circuit 2 / Circuit 3 / Circuit 4)
Adjustments to the ALGS Playoffs points system account for the move to five regional Split 1 Playoffs.
Split 2
The organisers did not cancel out the revert to LAN competition for Split 2 playoffs but this would also be dependent on the pandemic situation.