Smash World Tour Announced for 2022 with offline events across the world

After a successful inaugural year in 2021, the Smash World Tour is officially coming back. Organizer Video Game Boot Camp (VGBC) announced that the highly anticipated competitive circuit will return for a second year. It will include both Ultimate and Melee with a total prize pool of $250,000, the largest in Smash history.

Unlike last year's online format, Smash World Tour 2022 will include a series of offline tournament stops across the entire globe. Players earn points based on their best results. The best of the best will meet at the Smash World Tour Championships in December.

This year's Smash World Tour will incorporate the tournament series format originally intended for 2020. There are currently more than 25 events scheduled, with others waiting to be announced.

They span all over the globe with tournaments in North America, Asia, Europe, South America, Australia, and the Middle East. You can get a full breakdown of every tournament announced so far here.

Tournaments on the schedule will have different tiers and award points accordingly. These events are either platinum or gold tier. Silver-tier is reserved for local events that apply for participation. A player's top three results in each tier of tournaments will determine their ranking.

The more events a player attends, the more points they can accumulate. This gives many of the world's top names in Smash incentive to travel internationally throughout the year.

At the end of the year, the top 30 player's in the standings will be invited to the Smash World Tour Championships. The player with the most points from each region will automatically qualify. Two more will join via a Last Chance Qualifier (LCQ) held during the final event. Both the winner and runner-up of the LCQ will qualify for the finals.

The Smash World Tour was created in the image of other fighting game circuits like Capcom Pro Tour and the Tekken World Tour. Unlike other competitions, the Smash World Tour is not sponsored by Nintendo. Instead it is funded and operated by VGBC, the premier grassroots organization in the Smash community.

Founded in 2020, organizers were forced to cancel during it's initial year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It returned in 2021 with a series of online qualifiers in different regions throughout the year. The top players competed in offline regional finals before meeting at the World Championships. Last year ended with the world's consensus #1 player MkLeo taking home 1st place over Cosmos.

The first stop on the Smash World Tour is Virtuocity Smash Open in Doha, Qatar. Held from March 17-19, it is the first major Smash tournament in the Middle East. Virtuocity will only feature Ultimate and not Melee. The first Melee event will be Ultra Hard April 1-3 in Prado, Brazil.

The first event in the United States is Pound 2022 during the last weekend of April in Laurel, Maryland. Other renowned events in the scene such as Kagaribi Major, Get On My Level, Smash Factor, and Super Smash Con are also on the slate.

Complete information on Smash World Tour 2022 can be found on the event's official website. For more Super Smash Bros. news and features, follow Esports.gg.