Funding has been secured for three new Overwatch Alienware Monthly Melees, each with $10,000 on the line.
The Overwatch Alienware Monthly Melee tournament series will be returning in February, with an increased prize pool, a modified name, and a new logo (coming soon). The series, which will now be known officially as the "Overwatch Alienware Monthly Melee" (adding the "Overwatch"), will see its prize pool doubled to $10,000. With this increased prize pool, $6,000 will go to the winner, $3,000 to the runner-up, and $1,000 to the third placed team. This will be the third increase in the series' prize pool; it started with $500 in May 2016, was increased to $3,000 for the June and July events, and has been $5,000 from August until now. As a result of the increased prize pool, this will be the first Melee where the third place team receives a share of the prize money.
The Monthly Melees have long been a place for teams on the rise to show up and impress. After coming last in their group in the first of two October Melees, the Kingdom eSports team – now playing for Renegades – made a name for themselves by winning their group in the second October, the November, and December editions. Immortals took second in November and then won December, and have since cemented their elite status with a victory at the $100,000 Winter Premier LAN. The newly signed Hammers Esports shocked the world with a victory in their first ever Monthly Melee in January.
With its smaller prize pool, the Melees have for many months been skipped over by most of the region's elite. Among the three teams now representing North America in OGN APEX, only Cloud9 have participated in any of the past five Melees. Instead, the tournament has been a battleground for mid-tier teams like Rise Nation, Liquid, and Kingdom, as well as upper-tier teams like compLexity, FaZe, and Immortals. Although the titans of North America – EnVyUs, Cloud9, and fnatic – are still in Korea, the increased prize pool will surely attract the rest of the region's top talent to compete.
Neither the date nor the contenders have been locked in yet; however the event organizers are looking towards the last weekend in February as the tentative date. The $10,000 prize pool has been secured for at least three events – the February edition and the two that follow it.
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