Hafu Invitational – Omega Strikers’ First High Elo Tournament

September 23, 2022

Here's the format and teams to watch out for in the first high-elo Omega Strikers tournament on Saturday, September 24th at 12pm Pacific Time!

The Hafu Invitational will feature a $10,000 prize pool funded in part by Hafu's winnings from the Blaustoise Invitational! In her tweet, she mentions that her motivation for hosting this invitational is to support the tournament scene and provide opportunities for Omega Strikers players to compete!

The invitational will feature the top 8 NA ladder players as team captains (snapshot taken on Thursday at 11:59pm PT). If a player in the top 8 elects to play for another captain, then the 9^th qualifying player will receive the title of team captain, and so on.

The format will start with a group stage with a series of 3 round robins. That means each team will play 3 games against the other teams in their group. For example, Team A will face Teams B, C, and D a total of 3 times each. Therefore, at the end of the group stage, each team will have played a total of 9 games. Then, they will then be seeded into an 8-team double elimination bracket based on their group stage results.

The bracket stage will start as a best of 3 and then move to a best of 5 for the semis and finals. All 8 teams will start in the upper bracket. Since it is double elimination, teams can lose up to once, drop to the lower bracket, and win out to clinch the title. The $10,000 prize pool will be split among the highest placing teams.

The current team to watch is the expected favorites, G33ke, Gingerpop, and Lumost, who’ve won 2 alpha playtest tournaments together. Other potential favorites that could make a showing are Megaverse's (current global rank 1) team of himself, Griffin, and Dixon or the other well-performing alpha playtest team composed of LOLJSS, Vaughn, and Bobadex, who've placed 3rd, 1st, and 2nd in alpha playtest tournaments.

As for the rest of the teams, we'll have to wait and see! Since this is the very first high-elo tournament (happening just 7 days after the launch of open beta as well), team captains will have to scramble to find teammates they synergize well with to compete alongside them in this invitational.

Finally, all the action will be hosted by Hafu, Ovilee, and Ender on Hafu’s Stream on Saturday, September 24th at 12pm Pacific Time! Lastly, if you want to continue to stay up to date on Omega Strikers esports, join my esports focused Omega Strikers discord here!