ALGS Year 3 Announced with USD 5 Million Prize Pool
Apex Legends fans, your wait is finally over. After months on end with almost no competitive play, EA has finally announced the Apex Legends Global Series will be back in action for year three.
The world’s biggest professional AL circuit will kick off in early October. Like last year, the league will be divided into two regular season splits, winter and spring. They will now also include Regional Finals to cap off the regular splits, and will feature three international LAN events and an overall prize pool of $5 million. The qualifiers and regular seasons will take place online, while the qualifiers, playoffs, and championships will be held in-person.
Updated Format
The regionals are part of the updated pro league format announced for year three. The top 20 teams will advance to the Regional Finals after completing their 36 regular matches. The finals will consist of Match Point series, the winning progressing to the playoffs.
After each team completes their 36 regular season matches, the top 20 teams will advance to the Regional Finals. The Regional Finals will consist of a Match Point series, with the winner earning a guaranteed Playoff spot.
Aside from the regionals, another change from last year is that the competition will now be reduced to 30 teams, down from 40. EA cites the reason for this as wanting to ensure the “highest level of competition in this division”. Of these, 22 teams have been invited to participate and eight will proceed from the preseason qualifiers.
Twenty-two teams from each region have been directly invited, including both the preseason and pro league, except for one mission spot in North America. This makes for a sum of 109 invited teams so far across APAC North, APAC South, NA, EMEA, and South America.
Improvements to the LCQ
Year three also features improvements to the last chance qualifiers. They’ve been consolidated into one double-elimination esports tournament, offering another opportunity for the non-qualified Pro League squads as well as the top Challenger Circuit teams to make it to the Championships. The top teams from the LCQs will have another shot at the big title.
Registrations are open, and the preseasons for the winter split will last all of October between 8-31. The top four teams in each region, and will be decided by cumulative points earned through the qualifiers. There are eight spots in total at the Pro League up for grabs for non-invited teams.
Reigning champions DarkZero will look to defend their title. As promised, they have relocated to North America from Australia and will now be competing from the NA Pro League, no longer APAC South. The underdogs came out of nowhere this year and made jaws drop, winning not only the Split Two playoffs in Stockholm, Sweden, but also the coveted ALGS Championship in Raleigh, North Carolina.
The prize pool remains the same as last year, half a million dollars each for both regular splits and one million for the playoffs. The championship will feature a two million dollar pool, with the winner pocketing $500,000.
This year the ALGS Challenger Circuit runs parallel to each regular split, beginning on November 19. This is with the intent to provide amateur teams an opportunity to compete in open-registration tournaments. Now they may have a shot to qualify for the Pro League Qualifier of the first split, or the last chance qualifiers of the second.
The announcement of ALGS 3 comes as a big relief for fans and players, who were starved of competitive content in the off-season. Though NA is a little better off, other regions are suffering for lack of third-party professional tournaments. The championships are in June 2023 though, still a long way off though, so there’s plenty of content to enjoy until then.
