Ethereum Card Battler ‘Parallel’ Will Host $250K Esports Championship in Las Vegas
Crypto buying and selling card recreation Parallel is about to host its Parallel League Championship with a $250,000 prize pool up for grabs early subsequent yr, with the occasion set to happen on March 1-2, 2025 on the HyperX Area in Las Vegas.
Parallel is an Ethereum-based NFT card recreation that was named as GG’s finest crypto recreation of 2023. This yr, the sport launched onto the Epic Video games Retailer placing the sport in entrance of 75 million month-to-month lively customers, because it started its esports push.
This got here within the type of the Parallel League, a six-month aggressive league by which gamers battle to earn factors by means of in-game tournaments, ladder matches, main tournaments, and extra. The Parallel Championship is about to be the ultimate occasion of this occasion sequence.
The highest eight Parallel gamers will go head-to-head on the 650-person capability HyperX Area in Las Vegas. On the road is $250,000, with the winner taking residence $100,000 all to themselves. One other $250,000 might be handed out in complete to the winners of main and minor tournaments all through the course of the in-progress Parallel League main as much as the finals.
Since opening in 2018, the HyperX Area has steadily gained a popularity as one of many key esports venues in North America, internet hosting lots of of occasions together with the League of Legends All-Stars match in 2019.
“Our purpose is to create the very best esports scene within the buying and selling card recreation world. Bringing the championship to HyperX is a giant step in that path” Parallel Studios co-founder and CEO Sascha Mojtahedi mentioned in a press release supplied completely to Decrypt’s GG.
A variety of different crypto video games have dipped their toes on this planet of esports, hoping to bolster their respective aggressive gaming communities.
This consists of Solana-based hero shooter Nyan Heroes and 4v4 sports activities brawler Sparkball teaming up with esports giants to advertise their respective recreation rollouts, in addition to Ethereum card technique recreation Apeiron internet hosting a esports championship with a $1 million prize pool.
Earlier this yr, a variety of well-known Hearthstone gamers—the most well-liked buying and selling card online game—joined the Parallel ambassador program.
Most notably, Thijs Molendijk, an esports professional and well-known Hearthstone streamer, introduced that he could be supporting the crypto recreation. He took to Twitter to clarify that blockchain helps recreate the buying and selling component of bodily card video games that Web2 video games don’t ship, since property are locked inside their very own walled gardens.
However some Hearthstone followers weren’t joyful, calling him a “sellout” and saying that it has broken his popularity. Since then, Thijs has develop into an envoy for Ubisoft’s just lately launched NFT recreation Champions Techniques: Grimoria Chronicles and continued to advocate for blockchain video games.
Regardless of some pushback from players, Parallel has clearly set its eyes on being taken significantly within the esports world—and a $250,000 dwell championship is the subsequent step.
Edited by Andrew Hayward