Think back to your younger years of picking up the joystick of your chosen gaming console, ice-cold Red Bull in hand. Just as you start getting into the groove of alien bashing or cop evading (sometimes both), for so many of us there would come a voice telling us to turn off that TV and stop wasting our time playing video games.
If you never let that get in your way and knew that a life with video games is much more pleasant than one without, it could well be that your time has finally come. As anyone who has noticed the exponential rise of e-sports over the past 10 years will tell you, competitive gaming is as intense and popular as it is phenomenally rewarding for the players.
Red Bull Campus Clutch presents the perfect opportunity for avid gamers to put their skills to the test in a competitive environment. Players who make it through the initial qualifying rounds and national championship will be invited to take part in a Global Final in São Paulo, Brazil.
The very idea of being a world champion gamer would likely have seemed impossible even a few years ago, but 50,000 students from 300 universities would beg to differ. That’s how many people are set to participate in the 2022 Red Bull Campus Clutch, with €20,000 up for grabs for the winning team.
Irish qualifier event
Before you start spending that prize money in your head, you’ve got to think about the qualifiers. Taking place virtually on Saturday, 29 October, registrations are now open for any university students over the age of 18 that want to take part. Competition takes place in teams of five, so students can enter as a team or individually and be placed into a team.
To find the top three teams in the country, teams of five will battle it out amongst each other in a game of VALORANT. Once the top three teams from this qualifier have been chosen, they will go on to compete at the National Final on November 11 for the title of Irish National Champions.
If the eternal bragging rights that would come from such a victory are not enough, the champions will also be rewarded with an all-expenses paid trip to São Paulo, Brazil. This trip won’t just be for you to take in the city though, as 50 other national teams are going to be there to compete at the Global Final for the coveted title of Global Champions.
Whichever team comes out on top here will be treated to a VIP Experience at a 2023 VALORANT Champions Tour Event and €20,000 in prize money. Expect more details about this to be released in due time, so for now just focus on applying for the Irish qualifiers.
About the tournament
In its first year, the Red Bull Campus Clutch tournament proved to be incredibly effective at showcasing young e-sports talent at a grassroots level. A fantastic opportunity for any budding young gamers to try their hand at the competitive side of things against people destined for a future in the world of professional gaming.
This commitment to finding emerging talent at a grassroots level is a key part of Red Bull’s sponsorship of the tournament. Partnering with other likeminded brands to do everything they can to let the gamers play at their very best, every support is offered to help competitors along the way.
You only need to take a look at the hardware involved in the tournament to understand how important players are to the organisers. Much in the way a football club will invest in new training facilities and a performance centre, you can expect nothing but the best at the 2022 Red Bull Campus Clutch tournament.
As PC Partner, Intel NUC, renowned for packing high-powered gaming rigs in small form factors, will support players with their top-notch Gaming PCs. As well as that, SteelSeries is the official Peripheral brand of Red Bull Campus Clutch and will equip students with award-winning gaming headsets, keyboards, and mice.
Backforce, the new Gaming Chair partner, will provide ergonomic chairs that can boost performance and help maintain high-level gaming over long, competitive sessions. The official Monitor Partner, AGON by AOC, will once again provide high-performance gaming monitors for the event.
Entries are now open to currently enrolled College and University Students over the age of 18, visit RedBullCampusClutch.com
Featured Image Credit: Red Bull
Shane Winckworth