Yesterday, the World Championship qualification for Fortnite concluded. None of the big Twitch stars managed to secure a ticket at the last minute. The World Championship will take place without Ninja, Nickmercs, and Myth. The reason is likely a decision by Epic to lower the age limit to 13.
What was played: This time, the last World Championship qualification did not take place on Saturday and Sunday, but rather on Thursday and Friday.
It was week 10 of the World Championship qualification in Fortnite, the last week overall. A prize pool of 2 million dollars was distributed, along with the final 11 duo spots for the Fortnite World Championship.
These last duo spots are now gone, and once again, the eSports clans are claiming their tickets. Anyone who goes to the World Championship has secured a prize of $50,000. From there, it only goes up. After all, a total of 30 million US dollars in prize money is to be distributed among the 100 solo players and 100 duos.
Some players are even qualified for both formats.
A duo from Team Solo Mid managed to qualify in North America. A mixed duo from Faze and Atlantis stood out in Europe.
If you look behind the gamer tags, you often see young players if you can go by their Twitter photos or Instagram accounts. Age information is rarely found.
Some pros were reported separately due to their outstanding ages, such as the young Benjy Fish (15), whose mother took him out of school so he could have time for Fortnite.
What about the big streamers? Among the big names, only the Twitch star Tfue (21) managed to qualify for the Fortnite World Championship in solo. He did not qualify for the duo World Championship despite 0 ping.
Virtually all other “big names” failed 10 times in the qualification, both in solo and duo:
Ninja struggled with an explanation, played a good round with Reverse2k, but in the end it once again wasn’t enough. He will only go to the World Championship as a spectator.
Myth (featured image) is happy for his teammates from Team Solo Mid, but he won’t be participating either.
The controller player NickMercs (28) appears to be a mix of amused and frustrated. He often hears that he isn’t good enough. He cannot accept that: he often has taken down “these damn nerds” and then counts the names of the eSports professionals from TSM who are going to the World Championship.
He admits it would be better if he learned a different editing technique with the controller.
What stands out: Last year the age limit for Fortnite was “16 and over” – for the current season, the limit for participation in eSports has been lowered to “13 and over”. Apparently, some very young players have now secured World Championship spots that perhaps an older player would have taken.
The majority of successful Twitch streamers are in their 20s, have business commitments, and have to entertain their viewers, making them look increasingly old against kids for whom there is nothing other than Fortnite.
The Fortnite World Championship will take place in a month, certainly without most Twitch stars, but surely with some young professionals.
