Earlier today we saw a number of huge announcements at the surprise dev blog at the Pro League Finals in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. These included changes to the game format and new releases in the pilot program.
Game Format
Perhaps the biggest change to R6 esports announced today was the change to the number of rounds played. Instead of each map being a best-of-10 rounds competition, this will be increased to a best-of-12 round system - meaning team sides will switch after 6 rounds and a team will need a total of 7 rounds to win a game.
Lion Ban
The operator “Lion” has been banned from all ESL-ran tournaments.
Lion has been a controversial operator ever since his announcement nine months ago, as his gadget forced Defenders to “stand still” or have a live-tracking silhouette of yourself visible to the attackers throughout the map. Attackers will now be unable to bring this operator to their attacks for the foreseeable future as Ubisoft tests out possible reworks.
Pilot Program
As leaked last month and teased a few days ago, the pilot program organisations will receive additional team uniforms and headgears to go with their skins and charms.
The teased org uniforms and headgears via @R6ProLeague
It is, however, unclear what will happen with mousesports and Vitality's skins as they don't currently have Pro League teams - Vitality recently was demoted to Challenger League while mousesports parted ways with their roster a few days ago. Whether these skins will still be for sale is unknown as of now.
Six Invitational 2019
The first announcement regarding the Invitational is the prize pool, which has now surpassed 1 million dollars. This is as the sale of the golden Pro League operator sets has added to the initially announced $650,000 prize pool to reach this extraordinarily large figure.
Secondly comes the revelation of what happens to G2 Esport’s second Invitational qualifier spot. You may remember that G2 has now earnt their spot at the invites via both winning the Paris Major and qualifying for the Season 8 Finals, however, obviously, can only attend once. This second spot will be given to the second-placed team at the Invitational open qualifier happening next month giving European teams an extra chance to qualify for the biggest tournament in Siege history.
Finally, the Six Invitational open qualifier system has been revealed with an open swiss tournament in which any team can compete in with top teams then meeting Pro and Challenger League teams in a double elimination bracket.
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That is the rundown of all the new announcements pertaining to the future of R6 esports. Don’t miss the Grand Finals of Pro League Season 8 happening next on the official Rainbow6 Twitch channel.
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