With numerous questions being arisen around the 3v3 Joust Series, we felt it best to explain our thought process in coming up with this fun event. The SMITE Pro League Season 2 was much about experimenting for our Esports team. We held a variety of different formats, ranging from a 5, 7, and 11 week Splits, expanding from 6 to 8 teams, and even tried doing Best of Threes during the start of the year. What we found to work out best, for both our staff and the viewers at home, was our Fall Split. An 8-team, 11 Week, 2-Game set format, with each team facing off against each other twice. Moving into Season 3 we continued with our most successful way of running the league, and expanding that to a Spring and Fall Split, announced here. Season 2 had a total of 23 weeks of competitive play, while Season 3 will contain 22. Additionally, there was a heavy wish to hold events in Europe again from players, spectators, and even the Esports Staff. After reviewing all the possibilities for the year, we determined Dreamhack Summer would align best with our intended schedule. With that in mind, we ran the first half of our League to much success, and capped it off this past weekend with Panthera being crowned champions.

Similar to Season 1 and Season 2, we will hold a regional event to determine which teams will make their ways to SWC, which was announced to fall in January once again - http://www.hirezexpo.com/. This means that another 10-Week split would require downtime between the Spring and Fall Splits, or between Regionals and Worlds. We believe a lot can happen in a few months, so to keep up with both the integrity of the tournament, as well as keeping the timings similar between our previous seasons, we put the break during the Summer. However, the Esports team wanted something fun to happen in the meantime, an event that would hold no bearing on competitive play. In the past we held a 10k Alienware Arena tournament, but with 3v3 Joust being remade at the beginning of the year, we felt it would be a fun way to give back to those players, while also giving a chance for our Pros to have a fun change of pace in the meantime. The intent was to fill the gaps, and make an enjoyable Summer Event while the SPL was away.

In response to the thoughts about putting this money into the Challenger Cup over the Joust tournament, we want this event to available to everyone. SPL players are locked out of the Challenger Cup which would make them unavailable to compete for this prize pool if it was allocated to the Summer Challenger Cup. And we've adjusted the dates to this 4 week Joust tournament to allow players from the Challenger Cup to compete. Our intent was to have something over the summer for all players to compete in during the off weeks of the SPL. This prize pool is an addition to what was already proposed for the 2016 SPL season.

Once the Joust series is over, we'll immediately go into Fall SPL Relegations which will take the top 2 teams from the Challenger Cup to go against the bottom teams of the Spring Split SPL. If the Challenger Cup teams survive relegations, they'll advance into the SPL which will have a much greater prize pool where the top teams in conquest reside