After unveiling its plans for the competitive Wild Rift scene in Brazil, Riot Games announced Thursday that the first tournament, Wild Tour, will be an in-person event to be held on Oct. 8 – 10, in the Riot Games studios in São Paulo. The event will not be open to the public due to COVID-19 policies.
Brazil is still struggling to control the virus and even Riot Games’ plans were affected by the pandemic: players from Netshoes Miners and KaBuM! Esports tested positive for COVID-19 and four matches of the Brazilian League of Legends Championship (CBLOL) were postponed. Even if the matches are held online, Riot Games’ protocol says the players affected must remain apart from their activities until recovery.
Wild Tour will be held online until its final stage, which will feature best-of-three matches for the quarterfinals, best-of-five for the semifinals, and a best-of-seven match for the finals. Therefore, eight teams coming out from open qualifiers will be on stage competing for a $170,000 BRL (roughly $32,000 USD) prize pool.
Huya-owned streaming platform Nimo TV holds the exclusive broadcast rights for the event. Immortals Gaming Club’s (IGC) Latin American gaming platform Gamers Club will be responsible for the entire production of the four open qualifying stages of the event, which will have a $20,000 BRL (roughly $3.8K USD) prize pool each.