Nadeshot unveils $50,000 Warzone invitational tournament

Matt ‘Nadeshot’ Haag, a former professional Call of Duty player and founder of 100 Thieves, has announced an invitational Call of Duty: Warzone tournament.

The Nadeshot Verdansk Invitational will see trios compete for a share of the event’s $50,000 (~£37,609) prize pool.

In an X (formerly Twitter) video posted yesterday (May 14th), Nadeshot shared details on the format being used for the Verdansk Invitational. Moreover, the tournament is taking place sooner rather than later, on May 19th.

The tournament will use a kill race format, in which the number of eliminations scored during a match is the primary contributor to the total score. The teams that earn the most eliminations advance to the next round until two teams reach the final.

Kill race formats have featured within Warzone’s esports scene since its inception in 2020, where several tournament organisers adopted the format for events featuring amateur and professional players.

The Verdansk Invitational isn’t the first time Nadeshot has organised a Warzone tournament. In 2021, 100 Thieves’ founder hosted an invitational event in May 2021 featuring content creators competing for a $100,000 (~£75,257) prize pool.

Unlike other battle royale titles such as Fortnite and Apex Legends, Warzone doesn’t have an all-encompassing esports circuit despite Activision frequently supporting online events.

Aside from the World Series of Warzone, the only opportunities for players to compete in high-stakes events are third-party events operated by a range of tournament operators.

The most recent event held was the Trials of Verdansk, an Activision-sanctioned tournament offering professional players an early taste of competitive play on the Verdansk map.

A year-long esports circuit for Warzone has the potential to generate significant growth for the battle royale’s esports scene. In addition to the Call of Duty League (CDL), the prospect of a league and regular LAN events could cement Call of Duty as one of the leaders for first-person shooter esports events.