With Riot Games taking over operations of League of Legends from Garena in Southeast Asia, and the recent launch of new servers in the Philippines, one of the best ways to test their capacity is with a competition, it seems. Riot has announced the Empyrean Cup, a competition taking place in the country from now until November, with a PHP 1M ($17.64K USD) total prize pool.
Riot Games PH’s Country General Manager Joel Guzman revealed during a video announcing the competition that this tournament is the first of many in the country aimed at bringing filipino players into the international professional esports scene and competing on a global stage:
“So we really want to build an ecosystem that can help players unleash their potential in the global pro scene and the Empyrean Cup will be the first of many tournaments that our players can expect because we wanted to really re-ignite the competitive esports here in the Philippines so we are fine tuning plans for a bigger esports ecosystem,” he said in a video.
The competition is being facilitated by Gariath Concepts, who will handle online competitions and rules enforcement. The Empyrean Cup will culminate in a LAN finals event at the Electronic Sports and Gaming Summit (ESGS), which is being hosted at the World Trade Center in Pasay, Metro Manila, Philippines (that will take place in November).
More details about the Empyrean Cup can be found here.