Fortnite is a huge game, and while it can be a bit 'love it or hate it', there is no denying it has a pretty big following. However, it also has a large Esports community of professional players competing for cash. In most games, these events and players are far detached from what your average fan can do. It is similar to the difference between a pub 5-a-side team and Liverpool FC. With Fortnite, things are a bit different low. There are currently 5 weekly tournaments happening, each offering you the chance to win some money for playing.
These tournaments can be played in-game, by anyone with a console or phone or PC, and an internet connection. At the moment there is a huge variety of tournaments on the go, which is making it a great time to try your hand at them. You might not come out on top, but with plenty of points awarded for hiding long enough, it is always fun to have a go.
Fortnite is currently running a few different tournaments. These are all of those open to all players with cash prizes at the moment:
- Cash Cups - These run every Wednesday and let players compete against all others in their region, with prizes ranging from $2,500 to $400.
- Platform Cups - These ones are specific to the platform you’re playing on, so you won’t be immediately beaten by PC players.
- Fortnite Champion Series - This one is going to be a bit tougher. This is a big series of events for the best Fortnite players, with a much bigger prize pool but also tougher players.
These tournaments are all running weekly. However, the first two are actually four separate tournaments. As a tie-in to this Season's theme, Fortnite is running two cash cups each week; Shadow and Ghost. They're also running two platform cups for each platform with the same names. Essentially this means double the chance of getting a high score with twice the prize money being given away.
When Can You Play and Can You Win?
Cash cups run every Wednesday from 6 PM to 9 PM and platform-specific cups run at the same time on Thursdays. The second one is divided into one cup for mobile and switch players, one for PS4 and Xbox, and one for PC. All players are divided into regions too, so you’re only actually competing against a subset of players.
In this 3-hour window, you get the chance to play 10 different games. The points you score in these games are collected and you’re placed on a leaderboard. This is how point distribution works out:
Finish in Top 25 - 3 points.
Finish in Top 15 - 5 points.
Finish in Top 5 - 7 points
Victory Royale - 10 points.
Each Elimination - 1 point per elimination.
This scoring is the same for every tournament, you can find the
official rules here. From this, surviving into the game counts just as much as getting kills. This makes it possible to rack up some points just from hiding in the bushes.
As for if you can win, that is a little trickier. Competition is tough. However, the platform-specific cups actually offer quite an open playing field if you're not on PC. If you do get involved, you might notice that your points aren't registering as these calm Fortnite fans did:
If you can make it up to the Champions League of Fortnite Arena, you can compete in this. The first sessions are on Fridays, with a second-round following at the weekend. Coming out on top of this tournament enters you into a final tournament in April, which will have a huge prize pool. This is a really tough competition though, with most of the leaderboards being filled with professional Fortnite players.
There are a lot of tournaments running, so in theory; yeah. Obviously, it is a bit harder than that. With two cups running on every single platform, you stand a good chance if you're persistent! It's at least a fun way to kill a few hours.
