Unrivaled World Tabletop Championships Unveils 2018 Season

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May 02, 2018, 08:00 ET

IRVINE, Calif., May 2, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Unrivaled, the world's largest tabletop game tournament, revealed plans for the 2018 Championship Season at a star-studded launch event held in honor of International Tabletop Day in San Francisco. Building on the success of its inaugural year in 2017, this year's tournament expands the number of game titles in the Series lineup, and introduces a new Regional competition that raises the stakes for players and the local game stores they represent. This year's prize pool has also increased to $300,000, with top players eligible to win as much as $10,000 each. Sponsoring stores will receive matching prizes at every level.

Unrivaled World Championships launched its 2018 Season at a star-studded event in San Francisco on International Tabletop Day. The livestream of the Settlers of Catan game was featured on Twitch’s front page, where it was viewed by over 83 thousand people for nearly a quarter of a million minutes in total aggregated watch time.

"When we launched Unrivaled last year, no one had ever done anything like it," said Michael Williams, founder of the Unrivaled World Tabletop Championships. "We learned a lot in the process, and this year we're bigger and better in every measurable way."

The announcement party for Unrivaled's World Tabletop Championship was the most talked about board game event of 2018: its celebrity guests and their social posts drove a combined total of just over 19 million impressions across Twitter and Instagram. As a result, the livestream of the Settlers of Catan game was featured on Twitch's front page, where it was viewed by over 83 thousand people for nearly a quarter of a million minutes in total aggregated watch time.

The 2018 Series will feature 16 tabletop games, including Champions of Midgard from Grey Fox Games, Kingdomino from Blue Orange Games, Villagers and Villains from Studio 9, Evolution from North Star Games, KLASK from Competo, Red Dragon Inn from Slugfest Games, Nevermore from Smirk & Dagger, Onitama from Arcane Wonders, and Exploding Kittens from The Oatmeal.

Unrivaled Regional events bring employees and customers from local game stores together at parties held at GameWorks or comparable venues around the country to compete for prizes and a chance to win a seat at the 4-day Grand Finale in Las Vegas. The Unrivaled Road Crew will also set off in May to tour the country, appearing at local stores and gaming conventions such as Gen Con and Origins and offering additional opportunities for players to secure an entry in the Finale. Awards will also be earned by the stores represented by the players, so they can join them at the Finale. All game stores registering to become a sanctioned Unrivaled venue for 2018 will be invited to the regional events, space permitting. The first Regional event will be in Salt Lake City, Utah at Oasis Games on May 19.

For the second part of the season, competitions at sanctioned local game stores are set to begin on August 13 and run continuously for eight weeks. Competitors can demo and sharpen their skills with the featured Unrivaled games at the stores and compete in weekly tournaments that will feature two sanctioned Unrivaled games each week.

"Friendly local game stores are the backbone of the tabletop gaming community, and it's extremely important to us that they benefit as much from the tournament as the players do," Williams continued. "Simply put, the player wins, the store also wins."

Visit unrivaled.com for more information and follow @UnrivaledEvent for updates on the 2018 Series.

About Unrivaled Tabletop Tournament
The Unrivaled World Tabletop Championship is the world's largest tabletop tournament. In the inaugural year, 289 game stores hosted 1,606 satellite qualifiers from April through June that led to thirteen regional tournaments held at GameWorks locations and local game stores throughout the country. Champions of the six featured games took home up to $10,000 for each event and the stores that fielded the champions received matching prize money.
unrivaled.com

SOURCE Unrivaled