If you typically play Madden, you will want to know what the Madden Championship is and how it works, particularly if you have any aspirations of getting there one day yourself. There is some criteria that governs who can take part in the Championship. For example, in order to be eligible for the MUT Championship, you need to be a resident of the United States or Canada.
The basic overview of the competition includes the fact that the MUT Championship is an invitational tournament and is the fourth event that took place in the 2016-2017 EA Major Series. It ran from 12AM on April 29th, 2017 and concluded on May 14th, 2017. There were a total of 32 players who were found eligible to compete in the MUT Championship. When you think of how many gamers play Madden, you start to realize how elite the players must be in order to get an invitation to participate. The competitors took part in a series of elimination events that all culminated in crowning the winner of the Madden Championship on May 14th. The first event began on April 29th and ran through May 7th. This event was the Madden Championship Group Stage. This moved to the single elimination round of the MUT Championship which ran from Friday, May 12th to Sunday, May 14th. The winner of this single elimination round in the Madden Championship is considered to the very best player of Madden 17.
So, if you ever want to earn one of the coveted spots in the Madden Championship, you need to be invited and to be invited you need to fall into a very specific category. First, the top 2 finishers from the Madden NFL Club Series Championship are invited to take part as well as the 30 eligible gamers who earned the top ranking in the standings of the Championship Series. Because a tie is possible here, there are very specific and formulaic ways to break those ties. If you are ever invited to participate in the Madden Championship, you have two days to respond to your invitation.
The Madden Championship takes place in the game mode Madden Ultimate Team: Salary Cap Ranked. The MUT Championship is held in Burbank, California and all travel accommodations for participating gamers are provided by sponsors. The level of those accommodations depends on the phase of the championship in which the gamer is participating.
There are some really incredible prizes up for grabs in the Madden 2017 Championship. The first-place finisher walks away with $100,000 with second place taking $70,000. If you placed third or fourth, you win $35,000. The placements of fifth through eighth each walk away with $20,000 with ninth through sixteenth place winning $10,000 each. If you place seventeenth to twenty fourth, you win $7,500 and if you are in the lowest tier of placements from twenty fifth to thirty second, you still win a prize of $5,000 cash.
In terms of logistics, there are some very specific rules that govern game play in the Madden Championship, as you would expect. Each participating gamer submits a lineup that fits within the parameters of the MUT Salary Cap Ranked game mode prior to certain phases within the tournament. Each of the lineups must include a home uniform, away uniform, offensive & defensive playbook, 34 player items, and a coach.
In terms of eliminations, all of the matches that take place during online elimination, including both the group stage and single elimination, are a best of one game format. For single elimination competitions, there are two competitors who play with only one advancing on in the Madden Championship. There are also some very specific rules that govern individual plays such as on-side kicks only being allowable in the first half and other specific guidelines.
In the 2017 Madden Championship, gamer Michael Skimbo walked away the best Madden gamer, beating his opponent in the final round of the championship on May 14th. Skimbo has lost in the finals before but took away the title this year for the first time. His final round win came against Eric Wright, a very highly regarded player who his known for his previously impenetrable defense.