Nerd Street Gamers and Spectacor Gaming, Comcast NBCUniversal’s esports division, are putting together an all-women VALORANT tournament called the FTW Summer Showdown this weekend.
With the FTW acronym meaning “For The Women,” the tournament will have 12 teams competing in VALORANT for a $50,000 prize pool, even though it was initially announced as much smaller at the end of August.
After getting support from Riot Games in the form of $40,000 added to the prize pool, as well as a spot on the Ignition Series schedule, the event was expanded from eight teams to 12.
Now, the eight teams that were originally set to play will be joined by four squads that earned spots through a qualifier event last weekend.
Competition for the tournament will span three days starting today and ending on Sunday, Sept. 13. The official Ignition Series event can be viewed on Nerd Street’s Twitch channel starting at 4pm CT.
The tournament was originally set to start with a round-robin group stage, but since its expansion to 12 teams, the organizers have not yet announced the format of the event. Based on the fact that it will now span the entire weekend, viewers should expect to see some sort of group round-robin play that will help to seed a single or double-elimination bracket.