We’re excited to announce that the TEKKEN World Tour will return for another year. The 2017 Tour featured incredible action from beginning to end. We saw the dominance of JDCR and SAINT, the return of JimmyJTran, the rise of SuperAkouma and Noroma, and the crowning of a new world champion in Qudans.

We are proud of what we did in last year, but we want to make the 2018 TEKKEN World Tour even better. We’ve made a few changes to the Tour’s structure in the hopes of both giving players more chances to compete at Tour events and making the Tour simpler to follow for fans.

Here’s an overview of what to expect on the 2018 TEKKEN World Tour:

A SIMPLER LEADERBOARD AND POINT STRUCTURE

Last year’s TEKKEN World Tour was effectively three tours rolled into one. Events were divided into three regions, and while players could enter events in any of the three regions, they could only earn points in their home region. This led to situations at many events where the biggest chunks of points went unawarded.

That won’t be the case this year. The 2018 TEKKEN World Tour will feature one global leaderboard. Players can earn points at every single Tour event in the world. If a European player performs well at an event in the Americas or in the Asia/Pacific region, they will be rewarded for it on the leaderboard.

The point structure is also changing for 2018. Events will be divided into just two categories: Challenger events and Master events. Players will earn points for finishing in the Top 16 of a Challenger event or the Top 32 of a Master event.

Additionally, every single offline event on this year’s Tour will receive a pot bonus. The top four finishers at each Challenger even will share an additional $1,000, and players who finish among the top four at a Master event will share a $5,000 pot bonus.

You can see a full breakdown of the points and prizing awarded at this year’s events below:

PLACEMENT TOURNAMENT CATEGORY Master Prizing Challenger Prizing (Offline only) 1st 300 $2,500 150 $500 2nd 220 $1,250 100 $250 3rd 150 $750 70 $150 4th 100 $500 45 $100 5th 70 — 25 — 7th 45 — 10 — 9th 25 — 5 — 13th 10 — 1 — 17th 5 — — — 25th 1 — — —

A FULL-LENGTH SEASON WITH FEWER OVERLAPPING EVENTS

This year’s TEKKEN World Tour will feature plenty of action. The Tour will include approximately 40 events held across 24 countries on five continents. The events will include a mix of both offline and online tournaments, so just about anyone will have an opportunity to compete.

The 2018 Tour begins on March 16-18 at Final Round 2018 in Atlanta, GA. Final Round has a long and storied history within the TEKKEN scene, with a list of former champions including JDCR, Anakin, Saint, and more. We can’t think of a better event to serve as the kick-off for the 2018 season,

The earlier start to this year’s Tour means that many events that take place earlier in the calendar year can now be included. Final Round, NorCal Regionals, Kuwait Battle Royale, Battle Arena Melbourne, and Combo Breaker are just some of the great early-season events that will take part in this year’s tour.

You can also expect far fewer events to overlap this year. Although tournament dates are subject to change, there is currently just one weekend where multiple TEKKEN World Tour events are scheduled to take place.

You can find the full list of offline events below. Locations and dates are subject to change:

Date Event Location Category 3/16-18 Final Round Georgia, USA Master 3/24-25 Thaiger Uppercut Bangkok, Thailand Challenger 3/30-4/1 Norcal Regionals California, USA Challenger 4/7-8 BEast Arena: Hong Kong Hong Kong Challenger 4/12-14 Kuwait Battle Royale Mishref, Kuwait Challenger 4/28-29 Korea Masters Seoul, Korea Master 5/4-6 Texas Showdown Texas, USA Challenger 5/11-13 The Colosseum Rome, Italy Challenger 5/18-20 Battle Arena Melbourne Melbourne, Australia Master 5/25-27 COMBO BREAKER Illinois, USA Master 6/9-10 Fighting Games Challenge Lodz, Poland Master 6/16-17 TW Fighter Taipei, Taiwan Challenger 6/23-24 ADFT IX Barcelona, Spain Challenger 6/28-7/1 CEO Florida, USA Master 7/7-8 Abuget Cup Jakarta, Indonesia Challenger 7/14-15 FV x SEA Major Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Challenger 7/21-22 VS Fighting Birmingham, UK Master 7/28-29 Headstomper Copenhagen, Denmark Challenger 8/11-12 Moscow Fighting Arena Moscow, Russia Challenger 8/18-19 Tokyo Masters Tokyo, Japan Master 8/25-26 Celtic Throwdown Dublin, Ireland Challenger 8/31-9/2 Summer Jam Pennsylvania, USA Master 9/7-9 The MIXUP Lyon, France Master 9/14-16 SCR California, USA Challenger 9/15-16 Rev Major Manilla, Philippines Challenger 10/6 TXT TBA, Colombia Master 10/13-14 South East Asia Major Singapore Master 10/20-21 Berlin TEKKEN Clash Berlin, Germany Challenger 10/26-28 Canada Cup Toronto, ON, Canada Challenger 11/TBD TWT Finals Amsterdam, Netherlands Finals

Dates and details for the Tour’s online events will come at a later date.

AN EXPANDED TEKKEN WORLD TOUR FINALS

If you enjoyed last year’s TEKKEN World Tour Finals, you’ll have even more action to love at the end of this season. The 2018 TEKKEN World Tour Finals will expand to a field of 20 players. It will be held on a to-be-determined weekend in November in Amsterdam, Netherlands. And yes, we said weekend, as this year’s Finals will be held over the course of two days.

Day 1 will consist of a last chance qualifier tournament that will be open to all players. The winner of that tournament will join the top 19 points earners on the TEKKEN World Tour leaderboard in Day 2’s Finals field. Those finalists will compete for a share of the $25,000 prize pool and the title of TEKKEN World Tour champion.

The Finals format will be similar to the one used last year, but with a twist. The top four players from the TEKKEN World Tour leaderboard will be divided into four separate groups, but exactly which top seed will be in which group will be hidden. The remaining players will, in order of their leaderboard placement, choose which group they wish to compete in. Once that’s done, the top seeds’ will be revealed.

Just like last year, all of the players in a group will square off against each other in a round robin format. The top two finishers in each group will advance to the Top 8, with the player who wins the group advancing into the winners’ bracket and the runner-up advancing into the losers’ bracket. From there it’s a standard Top 8 finals, with the last player standing taking home the title of TEKKEN World Tour champion.

The road to Amsterdam begins in just a few weeks. Be sure to follow @TEKKEN on Twitter and to check our relaunched TEKKENWorldTour.com for updates.

We’ll see you in Atlanta for Final Round!