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What makes battle royale so special?

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If you are not a cinephile, you’re probably not aware that the gaming genre of battle royale gets its name from a Japanese film from the 2000s, based on a novel from 1999. But yeah, it’s a fact. The movie is about a competition between students who need to compete on an island until only one survives, a situation that influenced dozens of game developers ever since. With the playoffs in our PUBG weekly coming up over the weekend, let’s talk more about the battle royale genre and what makes it so special and interesting to so many people.

Brendan Greene, more known as “PlayerUnknown” began working on battle royale mods for Arma 2 in 2013 which saw some of the main staples of the genre introduced, such as the shrinking play area and the search for weapons and armor. The Arma mod remained just that for several years and saw a cult following before the standalone version, called Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds, released in 2017. PUBG was an overnight success, and built the foundations of what the genre is today. To capitalise on the big popularity, Fortnite, a game that was at the time a PvE third-person shooter where players defended against AI, made a pivot towards battle royale, and the rest is history.

The free-to-play model of Fortnite brought battle royale to an unexpected audience: young players without the money to buy full-priced games. Fortnite’s cartoon-inspired style was also more appealing to wider audiences than the realistic art of PUBG, and managed to make it one of the most popular games ever since. Today, Fortnite is still a cultural phenomenon, and is now much more than just a game – it’s probably the closest thing to a Metaverse we’ve seen outside of a large-scale MMO, and it’s also one of the games at the Olympic Esports tournament, but that’s for another time.

Since then, Apex Legends in 2019 and CoD: Warzone in 2020 managed to increase the competition in the battle royale space, with both games being free to play and very competitive in nature. The battle royale genre lends itself fantastically to esports, and tournaments were plentiful since both of these games released around five years ago. Today, PUBG remains the benchmark for the “real” battle royale, but games such as Warzone and Apex are also exceptionally popular. The unpredictability of the genre, coupled with the pick-up-and-play rules, means that anyone can try it out for free, and many people find the adrenaline rush of a shrinking battlefield unlike any other.

This is particularly true of our PUBG playoffs players, who will compete for the title of the A1 Adria League Weekly champion this weekend. Do not miss the action!

How map swaps affect PUBG

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Every esports title needs a shake-up once in a while—and for PUBG, that shake-up comes in the form of rotating maps. When the map pool changes, players need to adapt their strategies to the new locations and meta. Different game modes in PUBG rotate maps at different times, but the only constant is change. 

Why rotate maps? 

PUBG (and other map-based games such as CS2) rotates maps often to prevent the game from “drying out”, and to keep the meta fresh. Playing the same four or five maps all over again can end up being stale even for professional players, so the creators of these games tend to remove maps (or a single map) from the competitive pool and replace it with others. In the case of PUBG, maps are rotated more often for normal and ranked modes, and less often for the official esports leagues and competitions, such as the PUBG Global Series and PUBG Global Championship. 

In the last map rotation, Vikendi and Sanhok were added back to the normal and ranked PC rotation, replacing Taego and Deston. The maps at the moment are Vikendi, Sanhok, Erangel, Rondo and Miramar, and will remain so during the next week. 

The Adjustment Period

Regadless of experience, players need to adapt to new maps as they come, and this means that the first couple of days of every map rotation tend to be very interesting. PUBG pros and higher-level ranked players know all maps by heart, but even they need to adapt a bit to the rotation, in case a map comes up that was dormant for a couple weeks.  Historically, teams that adapted the fastest to the map rotations are the ones with the best performances, which brings a layer of strategy on top of the usual PUBG madness that follows every game. 

Other Games, Same Problem

Map rotation issues aren’t unique to PUBG; similar challenges appear in CS2, Valorant, and other games. They are perhaps most-known in CS2, where every change in the competitive map pool is heavily commented and praised (or criticised). Interestingly, in CS2, most maps get reworked often, and the return of a map to the so-called “active duty pool” is often a celebration of a new style. The last major update to the CS2 pool happened early this year when Train returned and Vertigo was removed.  Map changes are a much-needed breath of fresh air to competitive games, and are often polarising, but games would not be the same without them. 

To find out how our PUBG pros adapted to the recent map pool changes, make sure to follow the action during the PUBG playoffs this weekend!

Harmony is the LoL Weekly Champion; A1SeC RL playoffs this week

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The A1 Adria League Weekly tournaments are now happening at full speed, and we are happy to have watched some great matchups over the weekend in both the League of Legends qualifiers and playoffs, and in Rocket League, where students competed for the chance to participate in the playoffs later this week. Not only that, but we are back again today with the first qualifiers for PUBG, so there is absolutely no time to waste. 

In the A1 Student eChallenge, we saw a couple of changes to the competitive structure. Due to a number of teams participating in the first qualifier (6), we decided to go with a two-group format, with the winners of the groups advancing to the grand finals. In Group A, FER won the finals against Algebra and secured a playoff spot, and in Group B things were made a bit easier by TVZ forfeiting the qualifier, leaving only two teams competing for a spot, which ended up going to FERIT. 

The second qualifier had two total slots to hand out, which went to EFZG and TVZ. The grand finals of the A1SeC in Rocket League are scheduled for this Thursday, May 8th. 

LoL playoff dominance from Harmony

In League of Legends, we had two rounds of qualifiers over the weekend, followed by two further rounds of playoffs to decide who is the winner of the Weekly Tournament series. After the first round of qualifiers, two teams from each round advanced to the playoffs. From the first round, Vibrations123 were joined by Vertis & Friends after both teams dominated their rounds. Interestingly, Cevapi i Kobasice, a team that later made moves in the second qualifier, got knocked out in the first one.

The second qualifier was much better for the meat-friendly roster, and Cevapi i Kobasice won their side of the bracket. On the other side, Secret Club Esports beat Don’t ban Zyra in a great final, and wrapped up the qualiifers. In the playoffs, Harmony was the best team by far, and stomped their way through to the first place. Cevapi i kobasice put up a great fight in the finals, but were no match for Harmony. Third place went to The Secret Club Esports, and Vertis & Friends finished fourth. 

The action in the A1 Adria League continues throughout this week and weekend, with PUBG Weekly starting today, followed by the Rocket League finals in the A1SeC and PUBG playoffs over the weekend. Don’t miss it! 

How much can you earn by playing in A1 Adria League Weekly?

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We know –  everyone reading this does not think about money when playing competitive esports and A1 Adria League, and your primary motivation is to win just for the sake of winning, right? Still, there’s more going on than simply having us shake your hand and say you are great. Every year, we’re trying hard to improve the prize money so teams and players are better rewarded for their efforts in the League.

This year, the total prize pool will be over €40,000, where the Weekly cups will be €10,550, and an additional €3,150 will go to the best teams in the A1 Student eChallenge. The applications are open to anyone interested! 

The prize pool allocation depends on several factors, the most notable being whether the winner is a single player or a team. This is why team sports prizes, such as League of Legends, Brawl Stars, and PUBG, are larger than EA FC Mobile and EA FC prizes. Let’s dissect the prize pools further for each game according to the number of players participating. 

CS2

The most lucrative tournament to win this year is, as always, Counter-Strike. For the weekly cups, we’ve allocated a total of €3,000 in prize money, which translates to €300 per player in the winning team. The second-place team gets €1,000, and the third-place team will earn €500, or €100 per player. 

League of Legends and PUBG

For LoL and PUBG, we allocated €1,500 for each game, meaning that the winners get €800, second-placed teams get €500, and the third-place team gets €200. It should be noted that PUBG is played in squads of four players, with one substitution player allowed. 

Brawl Stars

Brawl Stars is played in teams of three players, and the prize pool for the Weekly cups stands at €1,350, with €600 going to the winners, €450 to the second-placed team and €300 to the third-placed team. 

EA FC Mobile

EA’s mobile football simulator has proven to be a popular choice in the A1 Adria League. It’s the only title that will have two separate Weekly tournaments, one at the start of the Weekly tournaments and one at the very end. Both Weeklies will have the same prize pools, with €800 distributed to the top three players of both events. The winners will each get €400, the second-placed players will receive €250 each, and the third-place players will get €150. 

EA FC and eFootball

For the two “main” football simulators, both globally and in the A1 Adria League, we’ve kept the prize pools the same as with EA FC Mobile. This means that the winner in both eFootball and EA FC gets €400, second place will earn you €250 and finishing third is rewarded with €150. 

A1 Student eChallenge

For our student competition for Spring, € 3,150 will be awarded to the best teams and players in four games: CS2, Rocket League, League of Legends, and EA FC. 

CS2: €1,125 (1st place €500, 2nd place €375, 3rd place €250)

Rocket League: €675 (1st place €300, 2nd place €225, 3rd place €150)

EA SPORTS FC: €225 (1st place €100 2nd place €75, 3rd place €50)

League of Legends: €1,125 (1st place €500, 2nd place €375, 3rd place €250)

Applications are open for the Weekly cups, so pick your game and get ready for exciting tournaments across all the games! 

How to apply for the A1 Adria League Weekly cups

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Our last article described the main changes coming to the A1 Adria League this year, mostly tied to the Weekly tournaments and cups, which will replace the Spring season in 2025. The cups will take place throughout April, May, and June and will be exclusively available online.

The Weekly tournaments will take place in CS2, EA FC 25, EA FC Mobile, Brawl Stars, League of Legends, eFootball and PUBG.

To apply for the events, you must head to the Games section of the website, where you will find a list of all games for the season. From there, simply select the game you are interested in.

CS2

Tournament page

Platform: FACEIT

Open Qualifiers: 30.05.2025., 31.05.2025.,01.06.2025.

Playoffs: 06.06.2025., 07.06.2025., 08.06.2025.

CS2 will have three open qualifiers, and the winner of each qualifier will advance to the next stage, along with one directly invited team.

To apply, simply select the SIGN UP link next to the cup you would like to compete in, which will lead you to our official FACEIT tournament page. From there, you will be able to join the tournament, view the brackets and participants and read through the rules, but we are sure that seasoned CS2 players will be very familiar with the way FACEIT works.

 

EA SPORTS FC 25

Tournament page

Platform: Toornament

Open Qualifiers: 19.04.2025. and 20.04.2025.

Group Stage: 25.04.2025., and 26.04.2025.

Finals: 27.04.2025.

Similar to CS2, EA FC will have open qualifiers and playoffs. For EA FC, we have prepared two rounds of open qualifiers, and eight best players will advance to the playoffs from each of the qualifiers.

To apply for the EA FC tournaments, click the SIGN UP link which will lead you to the Toornament website. There, you should log into your Toornament account (or create a new one if you do not have it), which will allow you to connect to the platform and register for the qualifier.

 

EA FC Mobile

Tournament page

Platform: Discord

First Weekly open qualifiers: 11.04.2025, 12.04.2025.,13.04.2025.

First Weekly group stage: 18.04.2025 and 19.04.2025.

First Weekly playoffs: 20.04.2025.

Second Weekly open qualifiers: 05.06.2025., 06.06.2025., 07.06.2025.

Second Weekly group stage: 13.06.2025., and 14.06.2025.

Second Weekly playoffs: 15.06.2025.

EA FC Mobile will have two series of weekly tournaments, which will be the first and last tournaments we will host in Spring. There will be three open qualifiers for the first series, with the best eight players advancing to the playoffs.

Applications for the Weekly tournament is done via Discord. Clicking the SIGN UP link near a qualifier will lead you to our EA FC Mobile Discord channel, where admins will help with any preparation for the matches.

Brawl Stars

Tournament page

Platform: Toornament

Open Qualifiers: 16.05.2025 and 17.05.2025.

Playoffs: 18.05.2025.

Brawl Stars Weekly will take place over two qualifiers, and the best teams from each qualifier will advance to the group stage, and the four best group stage teams will advance to the double elimination bracket to crown the champion.

The Brawl Stars Weekly events are also handled through Toornament, which means that clicking the SIGN UP link will open the Toornament event page where you can apply for the tournament, provided that you already have a Toornament account – create one if you do not have it yet.

 

League of Legends

Tournament page

Platform: Challengermode

Open Qualifiers: 02.05.2025 and 03.05.2025.

Playoffs: 04.05.2025.

League of Legends Weekly tournaments will consist of two open qualifiers, followed by a group stage and a playoff round which will include four teams.

For League of Legends, Challengermode will be used. Interested players will be taken to the Challengermode page where all details about the tournament will be published, along with the ability to contact admins directly through the platform. Similar to FACEIT and Toornament, Challengermode will also provide an overview of brackets and other details about the matches.

 

eFootball

Tournament page

Platform: Toornament

Open Qualifiers: 17.5 and 18.5

Playoffs: 23.5 and 24.5

Finals: 25.5

The eFootball touranment will play out similarly to the Brawl Stars one, with two open qualifiers followed by a group stage and playoffs. Just like EA FC, eFootball’s biggest competitor, we’re using Toornament as our platform of choice, which means that the application process is the same as with EA FC, simply apply for a qualifier and the Toornament platform will handle everything else.

 

PUBG

Tournament page

Open Qualifiers: 05.05.2025., 06.05.2025.

Playoffs: 09.05.2025.,10.05.2025.,11.05.2025.

The PUBG Weekly tournaments will take place over two qualifiers, with two lobbies of 16 teams for each qualifier. The six best teams from each qualifier advance to the playoffs, together with four invited teams, for a total of 16 teams. Across three playoffs, the teams will compete for points across six maps in each playoff. The team with the most points – wins!

Announcing the A1 Adria League plans for 2025

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After a thrilling LAN final last November and the conclusion of the 14th season of your favourite regional esports league, we are back with more in 2025. This year, we’ve made several notable changes to the tournament structure to improve the overall experience, while not dialing down on the best parts that made the league one of the premier destinations for esports in the region since our first season back in 2017. Since then, many of our players went on to achieve great success globally, the prize pool has steadily increased, and so did the number of titles on offer. Today, we’re taking the next step.

What’s new?

The A1 Adria League had two seasons per calendar year for a long time. The year’s first season was smaller in scope and took place online, while the fall season concluded on the Reboot InfoGamer in November as a large LAN event. To streamline the year for players and teams and increase the league’s overall quality, we are happy to announce an evolution of the dual-season format, called the A1 Adria League Weekly. For players and teams, nothing grand will change: there will still be dozens of matches to be played during spring in several games and rewards to earn for both individuals and teams. The new format aims to build on our past experiences and successes while responding to the feedback of the players and the community and putting a greater focus on the LAN finals later in the year. The Weekly tournaments will still serve as proving grounds for the ‘big’ season later in the year, albeit with a new name and a slightly tweaked format.

We are also happy to continue investing in the A1 Adria League Student eChallenge (A1 SeC), our student-focused esports competition, which will be featured in both the spring and fall tournaments in 2025. The A1 SeC has been a staple of the League since its inception, and we’re incredibly happy to keep the student competitions through both the Weekly tournaments and the 15th season.

The total prize pool for the Weekly tournaments will be €13,700, with €10,550 divided between the best teams and players of the regular tournaments and €3,150 going to the A1 SeC.

We’re starting things off in early April, and the weekly events will last until mid-June.

What games will be played?

While shuffling things around, we’re sticking to some known favourites for the Weekly tournaments. For the Weekly tournaments, players will compete in EA SPORTS FC Mobile (EA FC Mobile) as well as the regular EA SPORTS FC (EA FC), League of Legends, PUBG: Battlegrounds, Brawl Stars, eFootball: PES and Counter-Strike 2. The selection of games reflects our interest for mobile, PC and console players and aims to provide a good balance between global super hits such as CS2 and LoL and regional favourites EA FC and Brawl Stars.

What about Season 15?

We’re working hard to enhance and improve the overall experience for everyone involved for our milestone season 15, which will still keep the long-standing format we are all familiar with, together with dozens of hours of air time, some of the region’s best players, panel discussions, interviews and audience activities. More of everything is coming our way. We aim to tweak the format once again according to the information we received from both viewers and teams. Still, you can expect the season to feature fan-favourites EA FC and CS2, as well as other games, and we are happy to announce that the LAN finals will take place during the Reboot InfoGamer in November. We’ll share further details and enhancements for the 15th season as it approaches – but it will certainly be bigger and better than any before it.

Looking ahead, we invite everyone to apply for the Weekly tournaments in the mentioned games, and wish everyone the best of luck in the initial competitions!

This season’s PUBG champion is team Grove Street!

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Another mini tournament is over as we are getting closer to the finish of the 12th A1 Adria League season. Namely, PUBG got a new champion after three seasons, Grove Street. Read on to learn how they reached the top spot and every interesting detail of the tournament!

Exciting first day of competition

We have seen many signed-up teams and some of the favorites were Sniip, Late to Party, Idemo Bato, and Rock Solid Boys as the first day of the tournament started hectic. On the first map, we saw quite a chaotic midgame as all teams tried to take the best possible positions, and some of the biggest favorites lost key players. Sniip benefited from an early rotation into the center of the zone, which followed them to the very end. They managed to win the Chicken Dinner even though they made a tactical mistake and got separated at the finish.

On the second map, the uncomfortable first zone dictated that all teams frantically searched for an early entrance into it, and Late To Party managed to get through the quite chaotic game the best and was rewarded for its stable and disciplined game with a 4-to-1 situation at the end. They had as many as 12 kills and first place on the ranking list.

Changing the map also brings a total change to the table. The outsiders outplayed numerous favorites, and in the chaotic finale, we fell from 29 living players to only 11 fighters in less than 60 seconds. Ja Genau team shot very well, but he was not rewarded with kills for their efforts, they will have to settle for placing in the top 4. Together as one secured the Chicken Dinner, but they surely must regret that they did not confirm more kills on Taeg.

The fourth map was won by Sniip and his team while the fifth and the most popular Erangel by our champions. And thus ended the first day of the PUBG competition.

Pubg Day 2 and a last chance for the top 8

Right at the beginning of the first game on the second day of the tournament, the underdogs took the opportunity to find unheated favorites, and in the end, we saw four teams from the bottom of the table. Menace did the best, winning the Chicken Dinner, and Ja Genau launched themselves into the top 8.

On the second Erangel, we saw a show of force by Sniip and Late to Party. Both teams “transferred” 10 kills, and in the clutch end, Zeko almost clutched. Still, he lacked a few better shots to secure the win, so Late to Party celebrated.

Vikendi relaunched Ja Genau into the top 8 – Carlo97 was the real hero of this team, as he dominated the entire game. In the late game, he broke key situations twice, first with two huge headshots from AWM on Grove Street players, and then in a 1v1 situation against XGlide’s Needex.

The fourth map saw the final battle between Together as One and XGlide where the latter profited with many kills and a Chicken Dinner. Furthermore, the highlight of the fifth map was a 2v1 battle between the BOMBER team and Grove Street. Woxez handled this situation brilliantly and took the Chicken Dinner for Grove Street with a clutch shot.

Grove Street victorious in the finals

Day three saw a dramatic finish to the tournament as the efforts of Grove Street and TogetherAsOne led to a photo finish between the two teams. TogetherAsOne’s bold rush on the last map, where they were forced to chase down an 18-point gap that Grove Street had, led to a head-to-head clash where Molodoct had to clutch and eliminate Grove Street. 

This put TaO in a situation where they needed a Chicken Dinner and 5 kills, which ultimately did not materialize as 4UP intercepted TaO and extinguished their hopes of victory. Moreover, Team Ja Genau must be pleased with the third day of competition as they managed to jump from 9th to third place and achieve the highest number of points earned during this day of competition.

Sign up for the first PUBG qualifier ever in A1 Adria League!

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The popular battle royale, which has won two awards for Best Multiplayer Game the year of its release, is coming to A1 Adria League. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds or simply PUBG is making its debut in the ninth season of A1AL. This is the first time we are hosting this battle royale game, and the qualifier for it is coming very soon.

PUBG debut in A1 Adria League

This team game is here for the first time, and you don’t want to miss the chance to become the best PUBG team in the region. PUBG will have the same format as the previous games such as VALORANT, League of Legends, and others that we had this season. This means fans and players and teams involved will be able to enjoy two weekends of playing and watching. One weekend, namely May 21th, will be reserved for the one and only qualifier, while the week after that we will see the best 16 teams compete for the prize in the playoff phase of the competition. PUBG has a prize pool of 1000€, and the best two teams will receive the money.

LOL_Prizepool_S9

What you need to know about signing up is that instead of FACEIT, the qualifier will be held on Steam. There will be two lobbies created, each containing 16 teams, or 64 players. The best 16 teams will advance to the playoffs where they will battle for the title of the best and the championship. You can already sign up for the qualifiers in which we’ll see two lobbies of 16 teams competing for a spot in the playoffs. Each lobby will play five maps with the top 8 from each lobby advancing to the playoffs. In the playoffs, there will be only one lobby. Five maps will decide who will take home the title of best PUBG team in the region and A1 Adria League.

You can sign up already by clicking on the link below and filling out the form.

  • STAGE
  • A1 Adria League Season 9 – PUBG – Open Qualifier

 

Watch your favorite streamers during the STREAM UŽIVO panel!

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Recently we announced Reboot Online Games Week – a week full of fun, entertainment, and high-quality competition. The A1 Adria League playoffs along with different events joined by famous names from our region will take place every day for a whole week – from 23.11 – 29.11.2020.

One of the things that we mentioned first was the STREAM UŽIVO panel. You have probably heard of sprEEEzy, Sansen, neLo, Nikolarn, and DoubleAiM. All of these are famous regional esports personalities that will be taking part in the Reboot Online Games Week.

Nikola“Nikolarn” Aničić is a content creator for Team Singularity who has over 500 thousand followers on Twitch and constantly keeps growing. He plays all kinds of games such as Apex Legends, Call of Duty: Warzone – and VALORANT. Nikola will be the first on schedule when we talk about Reboot Online Games Week – join in on Monday at 13:00 and watch Nikola outplay other players in a couple of VALORANT matches.

Aleksa “DoubleAiM” Stanković is without a doubt one of the best League of Legends players in the region. Along with his former teammates and CR4ZY, Aleksa finished second in the latest season of EBL and took part in the European Masters competition. Starting at the same time as Nikolarn does, but on Tuesday, DoubleAiM will look to gain some of that juicy ELO while streaming his games to our viewers.

We will be watching one more stream on Tuesday. An ex-Overwatch and StarCraft II player, Maro “sprEEEzy” Miličević is currently focusing on PUBG. He will be one of the two guests for the Reboot Online Games Week that will stream this battle royale title and we hope that you will be present and cheer for him while he tries to get that Chicken Dinner at 17:00.

Former top 80 tennis player according to the WTA as well as a PUBG player and host, it seems like Sanda “Sansen” Mamić rocks the competition in every game she plays. Sanda has plenty of PUBG experience in the regional and international scene, having attended tournaments such as the second season of Broadcaster Royale and the Girl Gamer Royale S1. She has also been a shoutcaster for the PUBG Balkan League along with our dear A1 Adria League caster Baro “Pougljeni Mrav” Barukčić. Check out her stream on Wednesday at 13 o’clock.

Last but most certainly not least comes Leon “neLo” Pesić – the absolute best Croatian Rainbow Six: Siege player who recently spent more than a year playing for Natus Vincere, one of the top R6: Siege teams in the world. neLo’s stream begins at 18:00 on Wednesday and we expect to see a big number of regional fans watching him dominated the tiers of R6.

Make sure to be on the stream while these regional esports personalities are streaming (you should be on the stream anyway!), as they know how to do a great entertaining stream while providing a high-quality stream skillwise. More information for the other panels will be available soon..