Waves Egaming to host $10,000 T.O Spawn event
Waves Egaming are back with their first tournament, the T.O Spawn. The turn-up-and-play tournament will feature at least $10,000 in prizes, and will be taking place between April 26th - 28th.
The tournament is designed to hold a maximum of 40 teams held at the Waves Egaming Arena in Toronto, Ontario. Held over three days, the first two days will hold the eight five team best-of-one round robin groups, with four held on each day. The afternoon of the Saturday will see the double elimination bracket start, in a best-of-one format. Sunday will have the remainder of the bracket, in best-of-three, held in a best-of-three, with the final taking place at 5 PM EDT.
The full schedule, with times in EDT, is as follows:
| Friday, April 26th | ||
| 4 PM | Groups 1, 3, 6 and 8 Start | BO1 |
| Saturday, April 27th | ||
| 10 AM | Groups 2, 4, 5 and 7 Start | BO1 |
| 4 PM | Playoffs start | BO1 |
| Sunday, April 28th | ||
| 10 AM | Quarterfinals start | BO3 |
| 5 PM | Grand Final | BO3 |
The entry fee is currently CA$85 until March 18th, when the tickets will rise to CA$100. Tickets and registration can be found on the tournament's Smash.gg page.
Waves Egaming were previously set to hold a CS:GO event in September to launch the arena, before it was pushed back by a month. In October, the tournament was once again postponed to "Spring 2019" while committing to giving all attendees refunds and compensation for travel.
In the comments on our previous article about the cancellation, Anhduy "nguyen" Nguyen copied out the text of an email that was sent from Waves Egaming to all attendees, which listed a set of commitments including that they will "double the prize pot, include double elimination brackets, provide discounted hotel rates, and will be held on Saturday and Sunday only." As seen above, from the list only one has been fulfilled at a base level, with the playoffs being in a double elimination format.
The organizers have also confirmed that the top ten teams that qualified from the initial online qualifier back in August last year will still receive free entrance to the tournament. The top two teams from that qualifier, cantwinalan and Offbeat, will still receive the travel assistance they won for finishing top two in the event. It is worth noting that neither team are in their original form, with cantwinalan having become MASSIVEimpact and looking substantially different.
Further, Waves Egaming also told teams that they "will announce the dates three months in advance, giving ample time for participating teams to find cheaper travel and accommodation options." With the event only announced on March 4th, this was not fulfilled. They gave their response to this on Twitter after the announcement:
Waves Egaming's T.O. Spawn is set to take place between April 26th-28th with at least $10,000 on offer.
