The finals of the $50,000 (£37,891) Paladins Premier League Fall Finals, kick off today with a host of the world’s top teams in the mixer.
Only the top five teams will qualify this weekend for the Paladins World Championship which is set to be held at Hi-Rez Expo 2018 in Atlanta, Georgia in January 4-7th.
The likes of Fnatic, NiP, Natus Vincere, Virtus.Pro, and Mousesports. SK Gaming stands atop the North American scoreboards, followed by G2 Esports, Renegades, Team EnVyUs, and Splyce.
The Paladins Fall Finals kick off at 11am (EST) daily from Thursday to Sunday. Fans can watch the broadcast live from the PPL Facebook Show Page and the PaladinsWorld website.
A year on from the Hi-Rez Expo 2017, we asked Hi-Rez Studios Co-Founder Todd Harris how he’d sum up the year gone by for the company. He responded: “I’d say it has been a year of explosive growth for Paladins esports, led by a player community with an appetite for competition.
“Looking at this week and weekend alone – we have all 10 Premier League teams competing in the $50,000 Fall Finals this week, followed by Wildcard Qualifiers for the World Championship this Saturday and Sunday. Oh and also an AVGL college LAN finals match this weekend. Plus a number of high school tournaments, third party and community tournaments all over the globe.”
We also tasked Todd with naming his predictions for the finals, and he told us: “Both NA and EU have been very competitive but I’ll give a slight edge to SK Gaming.
“I’ll also say both China and Australia are looking very strong coming into the World Championship this January so that will be an amazing competition.”
Indeed SK have performed strongly in the PPL with only one defeat in eight games, whilst Splyce have endured a rough time picking up not a single victory. Over in Europe, Fnatic topped out the group with NiP and Na’Vi following closely behind. The Paladins Premier League is a joint collaboration between WESA and Hi-Rez Studios and was only announced in late August this year.
Esports Insider says: Hi-Rez head honco Todd Harris might be a believer in SK Gaming who have certainly been impressive but we have to throw impartiality out the window and back our home-city org Fnatic. We’ll be watching to see if who’s proven correct over the next few days.