Five more months until the groundbreaking esports event!

Filoil Flying V Centre Photo by Wikiwand

More details about the groundbreaking esports competition in the 30th Southeast Asian Games are being revealed as the event approaches closer to its opening ceremony.

SEA Games ad hoc committee member Joebert Yu publicized on his personal Facebook page that the esports event for the biennial multi-sport meet will be held at the Filoil Flying V Centre in San Juan City starting on December 5, 2019, five days after the event’s official opening ceremony on November 30, until December 10, 2019.

The final lineup of games for the discipline was also announced, adding Blizzard Entertainment’s Hearthstone alongside Dota 2, Starcraft II, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, Arena of Valor, and Tekken 7 as the esports titles to be featured in the competition. With the digital card game now in the pool, the 2019 SEA Games will now be composed of three PC games, two mobile games, and one console game, as opposed to their initial announcement that the event will be featuring two games from each platform.

The 2019 SEA Games will be participated by 11 ASEAN countries—Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, East Timor, and Vietnam. Yu’s announcement, however, stated that only nine countries from the region will join the esports events, where six medals are at stake.

On the other hand, other participating countries have already started their national selection for the sporting meet. Two months ago, Malaysia hosted the Malaysian Esports Selection 2019 Grand Finals to decide which esports candidate will officially represent the country in the 2019 SEA Games. As a result, Dota 2 team Unicorn, Starcraft II player, Kien Khun “Ranger” Yap, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang team Shopee Bosskur, Arena of Valor team M8 Hexa, and Tekken 7 player Zaba, have all moved to a national esports Bootcamp to train for the upcoming event.

However, the complete list of participating countries, as well as their respective qualifiers, are yet to be disclosed.

The 2019 SEA Games will be hosted in the Philippines. About 10,000 national athletes from 11 nations will participate in 550 sporting events. Esports in the SEA Games 2019 is accredited by the Asian Electronic Sports Federation.