FIFA 21, all about the new competitive season
Given the current situation and the success achieved in the summer, EA has decided to partially confirm the formula seen a few months ago, bringing us a new path but relatively already seen in the past.In fact, unlike previous editions, with FIFA 21 we will return to the regional format with the qualifiers and the related Playoffs that will take place between the end of 2020 and the first six months of 2021.
The best players of the Regional Playoffs will qualify for the finals of the FIFA eWorld Cup which will take place in the summer of 2021.
To better support the online journey , the various countries have been divided into regions that will be assigned to players based on their nation.
Europe will contain 30 participating countries from the continent, including Russia, to which Egypt will be added , Turkey and Israel.
North America will be made up of USA, Canada and Mexico while South America will have its 14 states by correspondence.
Instead the Asian continent will be divided into two parts : East Asia including China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippine, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam; West Asia & South Africa: India, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and South Africa.
The latter will have its own qualifier given its geographical distance, but will be part of the West Asia region for Regional Playoff.
With this format, each region will have its own ranking divided also according to the available consoles.
The competition level will differ from region to region and the points will also change in based on the number of participants in the qualifiers.
In addition, each region will have its own data center on which Friendly Competition mode will be connected to play competitively.
This mode is unlocked in-game after obtaining 27 wins out of 30 matches in the Weekend League and therefore the FUT Champions Verified badge, as has been the case for 3 years now.
The Europe will be connected to Frankfurt, Oceania to Sydney, East and West Asia respectively to Hong Kong and Dubai, while South Africa to its capital of Johannesburg and finally the two Americas will have the peer-to-peer connection.
On October 31st verified players will be involved in the tutorial of the mode and giving any advice before the regular season starts as usual.
As this will be a year of transition to the next gen and the new ones. console will be released after the season begins, PS5 and Xbox Series X | S owners will not take part in the journey to the FIFA eWorld Cup.
So only Playstation 4 and Xbox One players will be able to participate in the competitive season of FIFA21.
There will be a further novelty: given the b ace number of verified, Oceania and both Asian regions will compete on PS4 only, while popular regions such as Europe, North and South America will normally have qualifiers on both Sony and Microsoft consoles.
The Road to the World Cup
Registration to compete will be open until December 31, 2020 for all players on the official FIFA21 Global Series website.As mentioned above, to participate in the qualifiers you will need to obtain 27 wins out of 30 with which you will receive the Verified Badge and unlock the Friendly Competition mode.
Here, players will be able to compete in home and away matches, select the time and the ball owner in case of a disconnection, see the opposing team before the start of the match and finally choose a data center to play on.
The best 1024 regional verified points will participate in the Qualifiers to get the points useful for the rank ing.
Weekend Leagues will also be useful for obtaining points, but unlike previous years, only the best Weekend League of the month will be considered, which will deliver points based on the result achieved: starting from 20 wins each player will receive relative points.
All qualifiers will be played in the double elimination format, unlike the swiss format.
With the new model, approximately 66% of participants will be able to obtain Global Series Points to qualify .
With the swiss format it would not have been possible, given the different results that would be created between the various players.
Furthermore, it would be necessary to wait a long time between one round and another, and no one can start a next match if everyone else has not finished their round.
Moving to double elimination will help players increase their experience, reduce anxiety and stress, and switch between matches and one more way fast.
But despite this, the Swiss Format will return for the Regional Playoffs with 16 or more entrants.
In addition, the various players will be drawn based on their Global Series Points.
For the first tournament, the cumulative victories of the Weekend Leagues will be considered.
Each region will have its own number of qualifiers and related dates:
Europe: 5 on both PS4 and on Xbox One:
28-29 November 2020
9-10 January 2021
6-7 February 2021
6-7 March 2021
April 10-11, 2021
North America: 5 on both PS4 and Xbox One:
December 12-13, 2020
January 23-24, 2021
February 20-21 2021
March 27-28 2021
April 17-18 2021
South America: 5 on both PS4 and Xbox One:
November 21-22, 2020
December 12-13, 2020
January 23-24, 2021
February 20-21, 2021
27-28 March 2021
East Asia: 3 only on PS4
12-13 December 2020
20-21 February 2021
27-28 March 2021
West Asia & South Africa: 3 only on PS4
21-22 November 2020
23-24 January 2021
27-28 March 2021
Oceania: 3 only on PS4
12-13 December 2020
23-24 January 2021
February 20-21, 2021
Another way to qualify for the Regional Playoffs will be the Domestic Leagues, that is the export championships of the main football leagues that return again this year to give more interest to the competitive scene of FIFA21.
More than 30 leagues will be confirmed throughout the season and will be useful for qualification purposes.
Players will not earn Global Series Points but will compete for direct access to regional playoffs.
Therefore in-stage events will be held to determine their representatives at the next stage.
Each region will have a given number of qualified players as follows:
Europe-22 players for both Playstation 4 and Xbox One
North America-6 PS4 players and 3 Xbox One
South America-12 PS4 players and 3 Xbox One
West Asia and South Africa-5 PS4 players
East Asia - 4 PS4 players
Oceania - 3 PS4 players
The Regional Playoffs will be the main event of the FIFA21 Global Series.
The best players of all region determined by the regional rankings and national leagues, will compete for the title of regional champion and access to the finals of the FIFA eWorld Cup.
Each tournament will have a series of participants, as usual:
Europe-64 players Playstation 4 and 64 Xbox One
North America-16 players for both consoles
South America-32 players PS4 and 16 Xbox One
West Asia and South Africa - 16 PS4 players
East Asia - 8 PS4 players
Oceania - 8 PS4 players
The details of the FIFA Major or FIFA eNations Cup , FIFA eClub World Cup and the final round of the FIFA eWorld Cup will be Are announced later as well as the continental tournaments of the UEFA eChampions League and CONMEBOL eLibertadores.
Finally, the total prize pool will be $ 3 million, about one more than last year.
In previous seasons, players competed for a shared prize pool at global events.
Through the new rules, the distribution of the prize pool has also been revised.
The objective of Electronic Arts is to concentrate part of the prizes in each Qualifier and Playoff based on the number of participants of the past in the various regions.
The Qualifiers will have the following prize pool:
Europe - $ 65,000 for PS4 and $ 50,000 for Xbox One
North America - $ 15,000 for console
South America - $ 35,000 for PS4 and $ 15,000 for Xbox One
West Asia - $ 20,000 for PS4
East Asia - $ 15,000 for PS4
South Africa - $ 7,500 for PS4
Oceania - $ 7,500 for PS4
But the main focus this year will be on the Regional Playoffs which will have a total prize pool of $ 1,500,000 compared to $ 500,000 of the previous Playoffs and will be distributed as follows:
Europe-$ 400,000 per console
North America-$ 100,000 per console
South America-$ 200,000 PS4 and 100,000 Xbox One
West Asia & South Africa - $ 100,000 PS4
East Asia - 50,000 $ PS4
Oceania $ 50,000 PS4
Twitch Rivals & Youtube Creator: The Results
October 3rd and 5th took place online the Twitch Rivals which was attended by teams made up of streamers, professional players and footballers.During the first day, Kai Havertz's team was in first position with 18 points followed by other formations such as those of the youtubers ZwebackHD , Pieface23, Cacho01 and the well-known Bateson, detached only by the goal difference.
On the other hand, the team of Ibai Lanos, content creator of G2 eSports, finished in 6th place with 15 points.
At the bottom of the initial ranking, the team of the German streamer LPMassive and the famous Mexican streamer Castro respectively with 15 and 13 points.
On Monday 5 October the knockout phase was played with the quarter-final matches , the semifinals and the Final.
In the Final the team of Bateson and the team of Castro challenged each other. The first leg match ended 5-2 while the return ended with a result of 2-3.
With an overall record of 7-3 the team of the youtuber Basteson obtained the title of champion of the first Twitch Rivals and a check for $ 20,000.
The second tournament of the Preseason was played on October 8th, the FIFA21 Creator Tournament, hosted for the first time on Youtube Gaming.
The event was characterized by a first phase in championship format in which each streamer played 4 games against other players and subsequently by a single elimination phase in which the players faced each other in contrast with the ranking.
Lo Danish Youtuber Johans placed first by winning 4 games followed by Swede Ozzardhohd, German Patrick PMTV and Swede Lukas Gummesson.
Spanish proplayer Gravesen finished in 6th place with 3 wins and 1 defeat, while the only two Italians invited, Gigi and N irkiop finished at the bottom of the group with 1 win, 2 draws and 1 defeat.
In the last 16 they both lost 6-0 to Ozzardhohd and Johans. In the semifinals, Johans settled by 2- 1 German Patrick PMTV while Gravesen eliminated Lukas Gummesson with a clear 2-1.
In the Final the Spanish professional beat the Danish creator with a spectacular 3-1, thus winning the title of Youtube tournament champion FIFA21 Creator.
Final Thoughts
The current preseason month is bringing a lot of show to FIFA entertainment.October 29th this part will end with the FIFA Challenges and then from November 21st space for the real competitive format with the first regional qualifiers starting from South America and West Asia, and then in order Europe, North America, East Asia and Oceania.
What we have experienced in the last few months and are still experiencing today is a very strange and pious situation na of regret.
At least until next year we will not have live events, we will not have the opportunity to visit cities and travel the world for competitions, everything will be managed from home.
The desire to winning will not fail but it will be difficult to continue on this path.
The path to the final stage has also been changed with the return to the regional format, which was missing from FIFA 17 when a certain IcePrinsipe raised the cup in Madrid and won the last European title ever.
It is inevitable to think how the summer regional tournaments have given a boost to this comeback.
Suffice it to consider only the success recorded in Europe and America where the scene competitive is very popular so much so that thousands of viewers have logged into Twitch to watch the matches.
In addition, the management of servers and match results via a main data center plays an important role with the ability to give to many people in their cont inente, the desire to compete and be able to prove one's worth.
And in all this context, but a cornerstone of the choices: the Covid-19 pandemic, which has been destroying projects, dreams and lives for a year now starting from Wuhan and spreading like wildfire all over the world.
Staff safety and health must be the first decision of every company and in this EA accepted the challenge but the show and the action, the desire to compete and demonstrate one's skills has never stopped.
As always, even in these conditions, we think it will be a season full of events, surprises and twists, unseen actions and spectacular goals and we will live it all with bated breath, game after game, tournament after tournament, playoff after playoff, together from home starting November 21 on SportsGaming.win.
