On May 5, Tencent Games announced plans for its 2019 Honor of Kings World Champion Cup. The company plans to commit ¥16M RMB ($2.36M USD) total prize pool money for the tournament series. Tencent stated that the Honor of Kings World Champion Cup is regarded as the “top tier international tournament” in its Honor of Kings tournament system.
The tournament series will be hosted in three different cities. From July 10-21 the group stage of the tournament will be hosted in Seoul, South Korea; from July 27 to August 3, the knockout stage will be hosted in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; and the Grand Final will be hosted in the Chinese city of Shenzhen on August 10. The city of Shenzhen is also where Tencent Holding’s HQ is based.
Twelve teams will compete in this tournament and the winner will receive over $1M (42%) of the total prize pool. The top two teams of each King Pro League (KPL) and Korea King Pro League (KRKPL) Spring Season will be directly invited into the tournament. The remaining eight spots will be filled by four KPL teams and four KRKPL teams, with both regions to host their own qualifiers. The KPL qualifier will be hosted in Shanghai, China, from June 6-9. The KRKPL qualifier will be hosted in Seoul, South Korea, from June 24 to July 1.
Tencent recently updated its Honor of Kings tournament system, adding four franchise teams to the KRKPL Spring Season including European team Nova Sports, North American team GOG, Hong Kong team CW, and Macau team EMC.
The Honor of Kings Champion Cup is not to be confused with the Arena of Valor World Cup 2019, also announced recently. Arena of Valor is the international adaptation of Honor of Kings (officially titled Wangzhe Rongyao in Chinese), and features different content and a separate esports tournament circuit.
