APAC COMPETITION FORMAT EVOLVES IN SEASON 8

Rainbow Six Season 8 is right around the corner! Before it takes off, let’s review the APAC format for the Pro League, Challenger League, and Six Major Paris qualifiers. Season 8 will launch across APAC on June 13th and last until the Global Finals in November, 2018. Below is a condensed timeline of how each league will run over the season.

APAC will remain divided into 4 different sub-regions:

• Australia-New Zealand
• Japan
• Southeast Asia
• South Korea

All 4 regions will follow the same general format with minor differences in regards to schedule. The top teams from each sub-region will continue to meet at LAN events to determine the APAC representatives at international events.

Pro League

Following the strong showing of APAC teams over the past few months, the new format aims to support their growth. As such, Season 8, which begins on June 13th, will be split as follows:

*   **Phase 1**, the regular season matches, consists of 14 playdays spread over 7 weeks on Wednesdays and Thursdays. This phase will be played in a round robin best-of-2 format. The top four teams at the end of this phase will move on to Phase 2 as well as securing their position in Season 9 Pro League alongside teams placing 5th and 6th. The 7th and 8th place teams will drop from Pro League to Challenger League, which starts after the Six Major.
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*   **Phase 2** consists of a regional playoff using a single elimination best-of-3 format to determine the top two teams to advance to the APAC LAN Finals.
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*   **APAC LAN Finals** will bring together the top 2 teams from each sub-region, for a total of 8 APAC teams, to determine the two finalists that will secure a spot for the Global Pro League Finals.

Challenger League

New to the mix, the Challenger League will serve as a means to prepare teams for the new APAC Pro League structure. This league will be split as follows:

*   **Phase 1** consists of four online double-elimination qualifier cups starting July 21st and running through August 12th.
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*   **Phase 2**, the regular season matches, consists of the top four teams from the open qualifiers and the bottom two Pro League teams. They will play a best-of-2 round robin format over 10 playdays spread over 5 weeks on Wednesdays and Thursdays. This League will start from September 12th and end on October 25th.
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*   **Season 9 Promotion Playoffs (Season 8 Relegations)** will bring together the top four teams of the Challenger League to determine the 2 that will move on to the next Pro League season.

Six Major Qualifiers

The Six Major Paris, the first edition of a new annual Major event in addition to the Six Invitational, and the next LAN event for Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six esports, will take place from August 13 to 19 in Paris. After an intense group phase, eight of the sixteen qualified teams will proceed to the Six Major Paris’ final phase, held at the Paris Expo – Porte de Versailles from August 17 to 19. In Paris, teams will be competing for a total prize pool of $350,000, bringing the grand total prize pool across all official Year 2018-2019 tournaments to an unprecedented $1,400,000.

Each of the four APAC sub-regions will have their own online open qualifier - the winner of which will attend an offline qualifier shortly thereafter. The single best team from the offline qualifier will claim the 3rd APAC slot for the Six Major Paris, alongside Fnatic and Nora Rengou. More details about the Six Major qualifiers in APAC will be released in the coming weeks.

For the latest updates, please visit the Rainbow Six Esports Twitter page or Ubisoft Forums.