Drodo and ImbaTV announced in June that they will be hosting a US$1M prize pool event for Auto Chess named Auto Chess Invitational. The initial tournament details were scarce, including only the name, location and prize pool. As of today, Drodo has announced more details including the full list of partners, regions, qualifying information and dates for the Grand Final.
The Auto Chess Invitational will take place from October 25-27, in Shanghai, China. (Image via Drodo)
The tournament will run between October 25-27, 2019. The Grand Final will be in Shanghai, China with 32 participants from 8 territories competing for US$1,000,000.
The territories or regions include North America, South America, Europe, Asia- Pacific and CIS. Meanwhile, South Korea, China and Vietnam get their own regions due to intense popularity within those countries.
Image via Drodo Studios.
The tournament also has a heavy list of organizations helping various stages of the tournament. Imba, GLL, ESforce, SIN Esports, LVP, FunEase and VNG will help create regional LANs across the world to send each regions representative(s) to the Grand Finals. Each of these sponsors run different regions of the qualifying process.
Imba – China
GLL – EU and NA
LVP – Latin America
Sin Esports – Korea
VNG Games – Vietnam
Fun Ease – APAC
ESforce – CIS
Each territory in the tournament has varying amounts of invites available to the Grand Final. China has the highest representation with 9 available slots. This is closely followed by APAC with 6 slots. From there, EU, NA and Korea each take 4 slots, with LATAM and the CIS region allocated 2 invites each. Finally, Vietnam takes the remaining slot.
These regional qualifiers will take place from late August to mid-September. More information can be found on with their regional partners.
This is an exciting time for the Auto Chess or autobattler genre. Drodo invented the genre and are now furthering it to a competitive level. Their commitment to building the genre up and developing a competitive scene has captivated the Eastern audience. Only time will tell the viability of the genre as a competitive esport.
