China-based esports tournament organizer Hero Esports announced Monday that winners of the Teamfight Tactics competition (which was officially announced today) at the upcoming Hero Esports Asian Champions League (ACL) will earn one of six spots at the Esports World Cup, which takes place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for eight weeks between July and August.
The ACL is a multi-title esports competition hosted by Hero Esports featuring competitions in Honor of Kings, Teamfight Tactics, Dota 2, Counter-Strike 2, Delta Force, CrossFire, Valorant, and Street Fighter 6. Competitions will begin on May 6 and end on May 18.
Initially revealed in September 2024 when Hero Esports was still under the VSPO brand name, the multi-title competition was designed to feed into the Esports World Cup and feature a similar structure of the Esports World Cup, but for Asia. At the time The Esports Advocate speculated that the “ACL might become an Asian qualifier for EWC.”
The official ACL Teamfight Tactics tournament will be structured into three stages—Regional Qualifiers, Asian Challenge, and ACL Grand Finals. Registration for the tournament will open on March 23 and close on March 31.
ACL Grand Finals for Teamfight Tactics will take place in Shanghai on May 17 – 18; On May 17, a BO3 single-elimination match (described as the “losers’ final”) will determine the third-place team and what two teams advance to the championship match. On May 18, a BO5 single-elimination match will decide the runner-up and the winner.
More details on the competition can be found here.
It should be noted that Hero Esports has financial ties to the Saudi Arabian government, which funds the Esports World Cup and has been accused of engaging in sports washing to cover up its human rights violations—according to rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. In February 2023, Hero Esports (then known as VSPO) secured a $265M USD Series C cash investment from Savvy Games Group, which is a wholly owned company of the country’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund.