Will Season Finals continue for future seasons?
Currently Season Finals are only planned for Season 10 as a standalone bracket, providing a special event for top teams to compete in when there is no OWCS Promotion on the line.
Has the prize pool been decreased?
The total prize pool for FACEIT League remains identical to last season, with an additional 1.5 million FACEIT points being distributed. We are also offering free League passes to 9th-12th place teams in the Season Finals.
The prize pool has been distributed over more divisions with the recent introduction of "Intermediate" however, each Division will contain a smaller percentile of players competing for their pools.
How do Season Final Prizes work?
Prizes won by teams during the Season Finals are added onto any prizes won during Playoffs. Both prizes won can be claimed, and will be paid, as normal under a singular request.
For example, if a Master team wins Playoffs and the Season finals they will have $5,000 + $3,000. They will be able to claim the total of $8,000 after the event concludes.
How Season Finals seeding works?
Seeding ranks teams on their strength prior to an event starting, seed 1 being the "strongest" team in an event with the highest expectations of winning.
Seeding in most event formats places the top seed and the bottom seed in the first round, second highest with the second lowest etc. This is done to both reward top scoring teams with an advantage in the bracket, while also ensuring that in the latter part of the bracket (close to the finals) all remaining participants had an equally challenging journey.
The top 2 open teams are placed as the lowest seeds in the bracket, so will face the top 2 highest seeds in the respective part of the bracket; In this case being top 2 Expert. Although this matchup is expected to be challenging for the Open team, if they win, it would demonstrate their capability of competing against higher division teams and will earn them an automatic qualification to Advanced Division.
Is the length of a season going to be increased?
In terms of "Weeks", Season 10 will remain near identical to previous seasons. The amount of playdays each team will need to complete during that period will also remain identical for the vast majority of teams. The Season Finals take place during a timeframe normally dedicated to Promotion / Relegation matches.
Top 2 teams from each division, who will participate in the season finals, will have a few additional matches to compete for Division skips and prize money. Open to Expert teams will have a maximum of 4 additional matches if they have a flawless run. Master Division teams will have a maximum of 3 additional matches with a flawless run.
Is playing in Lower Division preferential?
Despite the Season 10 prize pool restructure, Master teams in EMEA and NA enjoy a prize pool of nearly 6x Expert Division during playoffs with half the expected participants.
The Season Finals allows for Lower Division teams to participate for a notable cash prize. Although participating in Divisions lower than your skill might lead to easier opponents during the regular season, you would need to reach an even smaller top percentile in said division to qualify for the finals and would miss out on the larger playoffs prize pool.