Fortnite comes to college with PlayVS Trios tournament

PlayVS is hosting their own collegiate Fortnite Trios tournament to be streamed live today at 5:00 PM ET on Twitch.

PlayVS is an esports organization which emphasizes college and highschool level esports teams and tournaments across multiple games. Today’s tournament will be the first major one of the new Fortnite season, and will be the first chance to check out how the meta might have shifted as a result of the patch.

PlayVS Fortnite tournament rules

This weekend — Dec 5 & 6 — the best college @FortniteGame trios in North America, $100k on the line. We're gonna crown a Fall 2020 Champion.🕔 : 5 PM ET📺: https://t.co/AAYTwpLiNZ pic.twitter.com/eiNSZxo3qz

— PlayVS (@playvs) December 2, 2020

This PlayVS Fortnite tournament awards teams points based both on their eliminations and final placement in a match, with one elimination being worth one point with a 20 point cap, and teams earning more points the higher they place.

The particular distribution means that this Fortnite tournament will have a heavier emphasis on placement than on eliminations, something which is typical to most Fortnite tournaments.

As a result, these Fortnite trios are going to be encouraged to play safe and avoid too many risks in order to make it to the final moments in the game.

How will the Fortnite competitive environment be shifted for Season 5?

🚨 IT'S BACK 🚨The NFLPA Open Ft. @FortniteGame kicks off on 12/2 to find out who the best Fortnite Player in the league is 🤔. The Top 8 will advance to the Streamer Bowl for a chance to win cash for their charity!(Opt out, IR & FA all welcome) DM us to get in. pic.twitter.com/XtvadmE0dR

— NFLPA (@NFLPA) November 23, 2020

Compared to last season, this season of Fortnite will feel like a return to the fundamentals. Players won’t have access to deadly superpowers that can invalidate another team’s build skills.

Instead, Fortnite Season 5’s new mechanics give players new ways to approach situations that don’t simply amount to calling down a beam of light to demolish an enemy tower.

The new crystal-dash mechanic is something players and fans are going to want to keep an eye on as it has the potential to allow for some clutch moments where players rapidly reposition within a small area. Of course, this new feature will also likely be used simply to traverse a dangerous region as well.

Another thing to look out for is how the new bounty system works. This will be the first chance to see if competitive Fortnite teams take advantage of the new gold resource in the game or if they only use bounties as a way to reveal nearby players.

No matter what happens, this tournament will be a great way to see how the competitive community is adapting to the new map and new features in Fortnite, and potentially even see whether or not this season will have longevity.