The biggest event on the calendar for Fortnite this season is the FNCS Major 3. A chance to see all of the best Trios in one lobby for each region. This is our final Major of the year too, so it has the highest stakes. It’s the last chance for players to get their LAN slots confirmed.
What can we expect with the FNCS Major 3 this time? It’s a bit different to the past two Majors. Despite this being the final one, with the most Global Championship slots open, it’s shorter. We’ve got a condensed format. Plus, a kind of different set-up given the meta of the game. This is how the FNCS Major 3 will work:
FNCS Major 3 Format
The FNCS Major for Chapter 6 Season 3 will begin very soon with the Divisional Cups. We’ve got to get through each of these, before we get a Group Stage, Last Chance Qualifier, and then the Finals. Where all the best teams are in one lobby. These are the stages:
Divisional Cups
The Divisional Cups are this year’s versions of qualifiers. The FNCS is still more open than most, but it’s increasingly locked up across Chapter 6. We now only have two Divisional Cups. Instead of five in Major 2 and 1.
Teams compete in these cups over the weekends. The best ranking teams from last season are in the higher divisions, and each week the best performing teams in Divisional Cups move up a division. Since it’s only two weeks though, it’ll be very hard to actually climb up at all. We’ll likely see most of the same teams as in the past Majors.
Groups
Once both Divisional Cups are through, we move to the Group Stage. There are three groups for EU and North America central Fortnite regions, but only two elsewhere.
Teams play in five games over three hours, earning points for placements and kills. The top 10 teams move forward to the next round, including the game winners.
Last Chance Lobby
For teams that missed out on the FNCS Major 3 through Groups, they get one more shot with the Last Chance Lobby. This round sees the runners up compete in just three games, with the winners moving ahead to the Grand Finals.
FNCS Major 3 Grand Finals
Once all of that is done with, we’ll finally reach the FNCS Major 3 Grand Finals. The last one of the season which will be played in roughly the same format we’ve gotten to know. We get six games a day for the weekend. Teams get points in each game with an overall leaderboard. There’s no match point system or anything, teams just have to perform consistently.
This time the teams get a share of the prize pool for winning. But they also get their slots for the LAN! There are even more slots this time, with then top 4 in big regions like EU going ahead. Since plenty of teams have already qualified, we could see a lot of the top 10 moving forward this time.
FNCS Major 3 Scoring
How can players earn points at the FNCS Major 3? Outside of the rounds where wins matter specifically, the scoring is roughly the same as the rest of the Fortnite esports tournaments. There are points for elims and placement. This is the system in use this time:
- Victory Royales – 65 Points
- 2nd – 54 Points
- 3rd – 48
- 4TH – 44
- 5th – 40
- 6th – 36
- 7th – 33
- 8th – 30
- 9th – 27
- 10th – 24
- 11th – 21
- 12th – 18
- 13th – 15
- 14th – 12
- 15th – 9
- 16th – 6
- 17th – 3
- Eliminations – 4 Points
Prize Pool
The prize pool is slightly different depending on which region is being played. NA Central and Europe get the biggest prizes, but it’s sizeable amount everywhere. These are the key figures for each of the regions and how many teams move ahead to the next round:
NA Central
- Winner – $180,000
- Total – $562,500
- Top 2 Teams LAN Slots
EU
- Winner – $180,000
- Total $816,000
- Top 4 Teams LAN Slots
NA West/Brazil
- Winner – $45,000
- Total – $180,000
- Winner goes to LAN
Asia/Middle East/Oceania
- Winner – $27,000
- Total – $90,000
- Winner goes to LAN
