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Home » Games » Madden Championship Series Makes Major Changes, Adds More Tournaments and Cross-Play

Madden Championship Series Makes Major Changes, Adds More Tournaments and Cross-Play

Brandon Satterwhite by Brandon Satterwhite
Aug 1, 2023
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Madden NFL 24 is just a few weeks from releasing, and that means another year of the Madden Championship Series(MCS) is almost here. The MCS saw a record-breaking year in terms of player participation last year, as Dez went on a historic run to become the youngest Madden Bowl champion in MCS history. This year, some big changes will give more players an opportunity to make their mark in Madden NFL history.

Big Changes

The MCS is expanding the number of major tournaments. Last year, the MCS had four major tournaments, coinciding with major moments in the NFL season. This year, there will be six tournaments, one every month from September to January. Players will earn points based on where they finish in the tournament. The top 14 point earners at the end of the first five tournaments will earn a spot in this year’s Ultimate Madden Bowl.

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These tournaments will all feature live, in-person finals. Last year’s Ultimate Madden Bowl live final was the first in-person MCS event since 2019. Now, players will have more opportunities to throw down while sitting right across from their opponent. This should make for some great entertainment!

The final major change is that cross-play is coming to the MCS. Players will be able to play against each other across PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC this year.

Tournament Format

All MCS tournaments this year will feature a similar structure. The tournament will start with the Ladder Play Phase. Here, anyone can sign up and compete to climb to the top of the leaderboard. At the end of this phase, the top 544 players will move onto the Single-Elimination Phase. Players ranked 33-544 will face off on day one until 32 remain. These 32 will take on the top 32 players from the Ladder Play Phase, who had earned a bye into Day 2.

The top four players from the Single Elimination Phase will move on to face off in the live final for the tournament. These four will face off for the top prize and an MCS belt. All players that make it past the Ladder Play Phase will earn MCS points, which will accumulate over the course of the MCS season. After the first five tournaments, the top 14 point earners will move on to the Ultimate Madden Bowl.

MCS Schedule

The MCS season will begin with the Ultimate Kickoff tournament. Ladder Play for this tournament will take place on August 19th and 20th. This is interesting, considering the game releases on August 18th. This means less than 24 hours after the game officially releases, players will be playing games for thousands of dollars.

This is an issue the MCS has been criticized about in the past. Having players competing for money so soon after the game releases has been a controversial idea. Adding to the debate this year is the fact that the Ultimate Kickoff is the most valuable of any of the MCS tournaments outside of the Madden Bowl. The winner of this year’s Ultimate Kickoff will take home $40,000 and earn 1,250 MCS points. Winners of the other four MCS tournaments leading up to the Madden Bowl will only earn $30,000 and 1,000 MCS points.

I spoke with Madden NFL Esports Commissioner Andrew Echanique earlier this year about having a tournament so soon after release. Here was his response: “For us, one value feedback from all of our players and really look closely at how we can take this into account as we think about our competition structure. We do conduct post-event surveys with all of our players and really look at things like that. I think for us, one thing that is incredibly important is when we think about our season as we mentioned before, we really look at those key moments throughout the schedule, obviously kickoff through Super Bowl, but the Ultimate Kickoff itself does provide an opportunity for all players as soon as they get their hands on Madden to be able to showcase those skills and be able to compete against the best in the world. For us when we look at both registration and participation for the Ultimate Kickoff this year in comparison to previous years, we saw tremendous growth and that I think is a testament to people wanting to engage early on and being able to showcase those skills really early. But with that said, we’re certainly open to feedback from our players and look to continue to explore ways always to improve the MCS.”

Those other four tournaments are called the Ultimate Challenge tournaments. These tournaments will take place each month from October to January. The payout and points for these four tournaments are identical. The schedule for the Ultimate Challenge tournaments is shown below:

Registration Ladder Play Elimination Live Event
Challenge #1 September 4th – 23rd September 16th, 17th, 23rd, and 24th September 30th – October 1st October 18th
Challenge #2 October 9th – 23rd October 21st, 22nd, 23rd, and 24th October 28th – 29th November 14th
Challenge #3 November 13th – 19th November 18th – 19th November 25th – 26th December 6th
Challenge #4 December 4th – 11th December 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th December 16th – 17th January 10th

Prizes

This year, the MCS has a total prize pool of $1.7 million. The top 32 players in each tournament will earn money and MCS points, with all 14 Madden Bowl qualifiers earning money. Players who compete will also be able to earn in-game items to add to their MUT squad.

The full payout and point breakdown for the Ultimate Kickoff and Ultimate Challenge tournaments are shown below:

Ultimate Kickoff

Placement MCS Points
1st place 1250
2nd place 900
3rd – 4th place 700
5th – 8th place 550
9th – 16th place 400
17th – 32nd place 350
33rd – 64th place 300
65th – 96th place 250
97th – 160th place 200
161st – 288th place 100
289th – 544th place 50

 

Ultimate Challenge 1 – 4

Placement MCS Points
1st place 1000
2nd place 750
3rd – 4th place 600
5th – 8th place 450
9th – 16th place 400
17th – 32nd place 350
33rd – 64th place 300
65th – 96th place 250
97th – 160th place 200
161st – 288th place 100
289th – 544th place 50

 

Ultimate Kickoff – USD $200,000

Placement Prize
1st Place $40,000
2nd Place $30,000
3rd – 4th Place $15,000
5th – 8th Place $9,000
9th – 16th Place $4,000
17th – 32nd Place $2,000

 

Ultimate Challenge 1 – 4 – USD $125,000 per Challenge 

Placement Prize
1st Place $30,000
2nd Place $20,000
3rd – 4th Place $10,000
5th – 8th Place $5,000
9th – 16th Place $2,375
17th – 32nd Place $1,000

 

Ultimate Madden Bowl – USD $1,000,000

Placement Prize
1st Place $250,000
2nd Place $150,000
3rd – 4th Place $100,000
5th – 8th Place $55,000
9th – 14th Place $30,000

 

Tags: EA SPORTSfrontpagenewsMadden Championship SeriesMadden eSportsMadden NFL 24top story
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Brandon Satterwhite

Brandon Satterwhite

Brandon Satterwhite is an engineer with a passion for gaming and sports. He received his Master's degree in Industrial Engineering from the University of Arkansas, and has published award winning research on topics such as NBA Free Agency. He has been a sports gamer since Madden 02, and can be found on Twitch either doing play-by-play for user leagues in NCAA Football 14, or playing a variety of sports classics on his channel, Idej Gaming.

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