The final competitive Fortnite tournament of 2021 is now in the books, with winners from each region collecting their prize money and exclusive Axe of Champions.
What made the Grand Royale different from other FNCS competitions was the format. The play-in stage required all but one team to secure a win in their qualification games. In the finals, the second day was worth double to points of the first, which is what we’ll be talking about, here.
Epic Games
Let’s start by talking about the play-ins. The idea of requiring teams to win a game to make it to the finals is interesting, but probably not the best we’ve seen.
Multiple high-level teams missed the cut as we saw a record number of first-time finalists make it to the Grand Royale. Playing for the win should be the goal of any BR team, but it’s not the only important element in Fortnite. Pop-off games were completely nullified and W-key strategies were disincentivized.
I don’t think that this should be the norm going forward, but don’t mind it as a one-off. Of course, a lot of teams were salty that they didn’t make it with the new format, but the best teams in the world still sat at the top of the heap by the end of the two-day final.
What was exciting about the Grand Royale was the format of the Finals. Day 2 consistency is always important, but doubling the points meant that no lead was ever safe.
In all of the three major regions, first place was up for grabs going into the final game. In the pas, a 40-point lead going into game 12 was GG. This time, that was a stone’s throw away.
Wins in day 2 were worth 60 points while eliminations were worth 4. A 10-elim win was now worth 100 points, where it would only be 50 in the past. No lead was safe for the entirety of the second day.
Obviously, this was much more exciting to watch. Pros didn’t seem to mind too much either. Sure, there were some who were screwed by the new point system, but the top placements were dominated by longtime greats in every region. TaySon added his fourth FNCS win to his resume and Bugha went back-to-back with Mero. You can’t call that a fluke.
Hopefully, Epic keep this part of the format going forward. The qualification stage didn’t work out but the finals were electric. We’ll have to see what changes Epic make in Chapter 3, which is set to be duos.
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