Pokémon UNITE Asia Champions League is a tournament for Asian players which culminates in a LAN final in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This is the first LAN regional tournament for the game and displays The Pokémon Company’s commitment to growing the game.
Here is everything you need to know about the Pokémon UNITE Asia Champions League.
Pokémon UNITE, the 5v5 MOBA by The Pokémon Company, is an up-and-coming mobile esports title. As the game continues to gain popularity, the publisher has been keeping its players in the core markets engaged through regular content updates and activities. One of these is the Pokémon UNITE Asia Champions League.
The Pokémon UNITE Asia Champions League has a simple format. There are three regional leagues, namely East Asia, Southeast Asia (SEA), and India. Five teams, selected from regional open tournaments, will compete in a round-robin format for a spot in the Finals.
The Finals, set to take place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, will include the top two teams from each region. This will be a two-day affair on March 18 and 19. On the first day, the six teams will be divided into two groups of three teams each. After a single round-robin competition, the top two will advance to the Tournament Stage.
Besides the bragging rights, the champion will walk away with $30,000 in prize money.
Three regional champions are currently ongoing, and only the top two teams in each will advance to the main event. Here are the teams currently competing:
Pokémon UNITE is a unique take on the MOBA genre but has done everything right for a mobile game. To put it lightly, it’s a more competitive version of Brawl Stars but not as complicated as other MOBA titles like MLBB and Wild Rift.
The game has just 10-minute matches. Additionally, the simple concept of scoring goals to win is something that new players can easily grasp.
Being a MOBA, it makes for a good esport and The Pokémon Company is attempting to do just that. Last year, the published revealed the first-ever Pokémon UNITE World Championship. It featured open qualifiers for different regions around the world leading to the LAN finals in London, UK.
The tournament achieved decent viewership with 46,000 peak viewers and an average of 26,000 viewers, per Esports Charts. A look at the language-wise stats shows that the regional language streams like Hindi and Thai were barely watched. The Thai language peak was just 16 while it was 749 for Hindi. To make a successful esport, being popular in the mobile-first markets of Asia is necessary. The Pokémon UNITE Asia Champions League is a step in the right direction in that context.
Additionally, The Pokémon Company has also demonstrated that it’s listening to the community. During the World Championship last year, people called out the exclusion of India. Later the publisher added the game to the championship after a lot of community outcry.
This time around, India has been included as a separate region in the Pokémon UNITE Asia Champions League.
The game is still in its nascent stage, so it will be hard to tell if it goes on to become a success. Especially after it has stiff competition from other MOBA titles like Brawl Stars, Honor of Kings, and MLBB. Nonetheless, regional tournaments like this one are certainly going to make it more popular in the region.
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