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Improbably popular Witcher 3 distraction, GWENT, is set to join the world of eSports when CD Projekt RED and ESL partner up to host the GWENT Challenger tournament.
The qualifiers will kick off this April, with an open tournament featuring 512 of the top ranked players from the game’s leaderboards. From there the pool will be whittled down to 32 and, eventually, only four players will remain to head to the grand finals. There they will compete for a prize pool of $100,000.
The twist, though, is that the four players who make it through the community qualifiers will also by joined by four popular and well-known pro-players in the finals. Trump, Lifecoach, ppd and Noxious – who have made their names across a combination CCGs and other games including Hearthstone, DOTA 2 and Magic: the Gathering – have received automatic qualification for the finals, which will take place in Katowice, Poland.
“It’s a real privilege to observe how active Gwent players are in the realm of competitive gaming. Community-powered tournaments like The Passiflora Championship, The Seven Cats Brawl or The Gwentlemen’s Open are a source of inspiration for the entire team, and we definitely want this part of Gwent to grow,” said Paweł Burza, community manager for CD Projekt RED.
The collectable card game, which made its debut in The Wild Hunt and kept many adventurers busy when they should’ve been slaying monsters or saving the world, pits two opposing armies against each other in a battle for dominance. The cards draw from the expansive lore of The Witcher universe, featuring factions, monsters and characters from across the series. The standalone version of GWENT is currently in closed beta. You can sign up for the closed beta over at theofficial GWENT website, or head over to the GWENT Challenger page to learn more about the tournament.
