The Official SMITE Magazine Issue #19 | Page 14

ARTICLE AN INTRODUCTION TO THE SMITE PRO LEAGUE By Grace “Fayakitteh” & Brandon Harding A s a fellow SMITE player, you have over the course of Spring, Summer, and Fall. Every probably already stumbled all over the split ends with a LAN tournament held amongst the icons, wards, skins and even frames dedicated top EU and NA squads. Additionally, the “Fall Split to the “SPL”, short for “SMITE Pro-League”. LAN Regional” tournaments are also the qualifiers What started out in 2014 with the “TSM Apollo” skin as a tribute to Team SoloMid’s for the yearly “Smite World Championship” (“SWC”). Since many of these (Thursday to Sunday) “SMITE Launch Tournament” win, has quickly engagements are played directly from the pro- been growing and achieving big popularity, players’ homes, Twitch- and YouTube broadcasts especially during the “Summer Split” of 2015. will be held over the course of an ongoing season. This was mostly thanks to the “SPL Season Ticket” bundle, which - bought for 300 Gems offered us players the possibility to gain “Fantasy Usually there are anywhere between 2 to 4 - what are called - sets of games; half of them EU, the other NA. While “Round Robin” (each team faces off Points” (or “FP”) by either winning in-game against all the other groups one by one) would be matches or betting on which of the SMITE eSports the fairest way to determine the best troop, it is teams would win throughout the course of a also very time consuming. This is why during each season. The more FP accumulated, the better the set, 2 units fight each other for 2 ‘Conquest’ mode exclusive prizes (skins, icons, announcer packs) matches, gaining 1 point per win. That way, even we could unlock were and soon the system began if a group has a bad game, it is still possible for to mean more than just that: we actually started them to climb to the top of the ranking board, since to get attached to groups and their members. whoever has the highest score in the end, wins. But what is the SPL and how does one keep track of all the regions and individuals? The SMITE Pro-League consists of “splits” held 14 The Official SMITE Magazine Issue #19 LAN-Tournaments and the SWC are played in a bracket, by using a “Best Of 5/3/1” system. “Best Of 5” is common to advance to the next stage, The GameOn Magazine