SINGAPORE - Singapore welcomes its first Valorant 5v5 league, The Gym Singapore Invitational (GSI), with teams set to play for a prize pool of $10,000.
The Oct 3-Nov 1 competition is hosted by The Gym, an e-sports co-sharing space and production house, and will feature four of the Republic's Valorant teams: Team SMG, Resurgence, Paper Rex and Reality Rift.
The teams will battle it out in a round-robin format before the top two teams face off in the grand final.
Donald Yeo, The Gym's head of partnerships, said: "We're extremely honoured to host the first head-to-head Valorant league in Singapore and to be supported by great partners like Riot Games, Logitech, Omnidesk, Secretlab and Aftershock.
"The Gym's mission is to create a strong ecosystem to grow professional gaming in Singapore and we are here to set the standards for the future of gaming."
The tournament is backed by Riot Games South-east Asia.
Valorant, a tactical shooter game, was launched by Riot Games in June.
Riot Games head of e-sports for South-east Asia, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau Chris Tran said: "We have been extremely heartened by the success of Valorant across Southeast Asia since its launch in June and there is an incredible appetite for competitive play in Singapore.
"With showcases like the GSI, Valorant players will have more unique and exciting experiences to look forward to, closer to home."
Since opening in November last year, The Gym has hosted about 20 gaming events, which include those for the community and e-sports tournaments, but the pandemic forced it to shift its events online.
Its projects include helping to create the eSPL, the Singapore Premier League's football video game tournament.
The Gym's founder Neo Yong Aik said: "The GSI is the latest addition to our ever-growing calendar of e-sports tournaments so the GSI is really a nice complement to our plans of building a steady stream of tournaments for Singapore's e-sports community."
The prize money offered at e-sports tournaments here vary from a few thousand dollars to as much as One Esports Dota 2 Singapore World Pro's US$500,000 (S$679,500), which took place last December.
