We said back in our 2022 Organized Play article that we would be back in February to tell you what the deal was going to be with the 2022 World Championship. Wouldn’t you know it, it’s February, hence ya boi is back to do exactly that.
Keep in mind this isn’t a full-throated announcement. We’ll have a proper announcement in May. We understand this is one of our much maligned ‘announcements of an announcement to be announced’ but Worlds is important enough that any information, even if it’ll change, is good to have as soon as possible.
Are you ready, then? Click 1, let’s initiate a run.
Dates
No reason to approach this with anything other than brevity, so: Worlds will be the 7th through 9th of October 2022. The dates will remain firm regardless of if we run the event in-person or online. That means you can get in your time-off requests now and be ready when the time comes!
We realize this is Canadian Thanksgiving and that’s not the greatest for all participants. Due to constraints on booking, it needed to be this weekend and there was nothing we could do. We plan to change the weekend next year and make it consistently the same weekend every year after.
Location
There are some pieces of ice that need to get broken before we’re comfortable running the event in person, so it’s still possible we must do yet another year of online play. This is, again, not a full announcement because we need to put safety first.
We want to be extremely clear: We will cancel any in-person plans and run the event fully online in the event of any major COVID-19 surges, new variants of concern, or egregious global travel restrictions. We will not compromise on the safety of our community just because we’re pandemic-fatigued.
In practical terms, this means we will make our decision between in-person and online in May 2022 and, barring any apocalyptic proclamations from the WHO, CDC, or Public Health Agency of Canada, we will be fully committed to that choice. If there are minor surges in Canada or elevated case rates closer to the event, we will mandate vaccination status, masks, and/or other precautions. If masks are required, free N95s will be provided.
We are currently planning an in-person event at the Sheraton Centre Hotel in Toronto, Ontario—the same planned venue as the 2020 World Championship! Along with the event space, we will be looking at blocking 100 rooms for stays beginning the night of the 6th and ending the morning of the 10th.
Schedule
I suppose you want to know what you might encounter.
If the event is online, there will be two flights of Swiss, Day 1A on the 7th and Day 1B on the 8th. Day 2 on the 9th for the Cut and Side Events. This is the same format as all previous Online World Championships, and nothing would fundamentally change from previous years.
If the event is in-person, Day 1 will be Team Tournament like our “Crown of Lasers” from 2019, Day 2 will be the Main Event Swiss, and Day 3 will be the Cut and a Startup Tournament. Full details of the Team Tournament will be in our proper announcement, and the Startup event could have a Cut depending on attendance.
Ticketing
You want access. Unfortunately, due to how we need to plan this thing, selling tickets isn’t something we can do today. Just like all the pending decisions on this thing, expect full details on ticketing in May along with a link to purchase.
We will commit to you today that ticket prices for this event will not increase, despite rising costs. Expect to pay $35 USD for an online event (like 2021), and for our in-person price to be $75 USD (like 2019). It has been a hard few years and making this no more expensive for all of you is the least we can do to show our love.
And that’s it! Run Successful. Come back in May to get the full details on the 2022 World Championships. Until then…
Always Be Running.
