Hi-Rez have announced a new structure for Season Two of the SMITE Pro League, after the success of the World Championships earlier in the year.
The season will consist of three “splits” - Spring, Summer and Fall, with LAN tournaments bookending each split. All teams who previously competed at the 2015 SMITE World Championship will be automatically entered into Season Two, with open qualifiers beginning this weekend.
The qualifiers are spread across three weeks and any team who hopes to compete in Season Two must enter this weekend’s qualifier, which consists of a single elimination bracket. North American teams will compete on Saturday, February 14th while European teams will compete on Sunday. Organisations will then play again on February 21st and 22nd, in a single elimination bracket with seeding based upon their performances from the previous week.
Finally, the top eight teams from Week Two will move onto the final Week Three, where they will be split into two groups of four. There, they will battle it out in a round robin ‘best of one’ series tournament, with the top two placing squads from each group securing their spot in the SMITE Pro League.
The Spring Split will kick off on March 5th, and features six teams from both Worlds (2) and Qualifiers (4). They will play over five weeks, with the top two teams moving on to the multi-region LAN.
Whilst this is ongoing, the Challenger Cup will return, presenting those who didn’t successfully qualify for the Spring Split with an opportunity to gain a place in the Summer Split. The top teams in the Challenger Cup will take on the lowest placed teams from the Split, in a playoff matchup to determine who returns. The Spring Split will end with the top two North American and European squads facing off on LAN.
The Season Two Pro League also holds great importance in terms of the 2016 SMITE World Championships. At the end of the Fall Split, only the most established teams will successfully earn an invitation to the World Championships, therefore it is vital that organisations earn a respective spot in the Pro League and maintain their presence at the top, with an eye on the coveted World Title and the huge prize pool that comes with it.
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