Last year, Red Bull presented the first edition of the Red Bull Conquest tournament circuit. Now, in 2019, Conquest is returning for its second year. The new circuit will feature eight different qualifiers (“Rally Events”) and three well-known FGC-related titles. The games chosen to be part of Red Bull Conquest are Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition, Tekken 7, and Under Night-In Birth Exe:Late[st]. While both SFV and Tekken 7 had already held Conquest tournaments during last year’s circuit, UNIST strikes as a total newcomer.
The format and schedule
The qualifiers will take place in several cities across the United States throughout 2019. Registration will be open to everybody, so even the least experienced players can try to put up a fight against each qualifier’s frontrunners. Hopefully, this format will amount to at least a couple of upsets throughout the qualifying process. It will spread across five different weekends.
Regional events will play out in Orlando on Aug. 24, Chicago and Philadelphia on Sept. 21, Houston and Los Angeles on Oct. 12, San Francisco on Oct. 19, and Minneapolis and Seattle on Nov. 9. There, players will be able to fight for a spot at the awaited national finals. Santa Monica will host the 2019 Conquest finals Nov. 23 – 24.
Last year’s experience
The winners of each Rally Event regional tournament will get to form a team in order to represent their region in California. In 2018, it was New York that crowned itself as the top fighting game region. That was thanks to incredible performances coming from Victor “Punk” Woodley and his teammates. The Street Fighter prodigy, together with Eli “LostSoul” Rabadad and Anthony “Mr.Whoopee” — who are themselves FGC legends — were able to take the trophy home in 2018. This year, however, the outcome is of course impossible to predict.
The shift to eight qualifiers for this year makes perfect sense. First of all, it helps to increase the number of talented players that participate. Moreover, this way the competition can reach further, expanding into regions of the country where it had never been before. Anyone willing to compete can take the first step and register for the qualifiers on Smash.gg. The full schedule for the Conquest circuit will be revealed soon. Have fun preparing, because you are definitely going to need that preparation if you want to go to Santa Monica!
