Apex Legends Twitch Rivals event is having a drafting nightmare

20/05/2021 'WeThePeople1', one of the competitors removed from Twitch Rivals, clarifies to The Loadout that the drafting issues were "a misunderstanding"

Apex Legends' Twitch Rivals tournament kicks off later today, including the game's first ever European competition on Twitch's headline show match channel. However, it's the North American tournament that is grabbing the headlines, thanks to a mixup in the preparations that have caused the teams to be drawn and redrawn three times already.

The issues became apparent after the first draw, which saw some teams draft multiple Apex Predator-level players, despite efforts to make sure that did not happen. Players had been split into three categories, one group of Apex Predators, one group of Master and Diamond players, and one group of players Platinum or below. The latter group are team captains, and draft one player from each other category to create balanced teams - in theory.

However, it transpired that some players had climbed the Apex Legends ranks since submitting their application to Twitch Rivals, rendering some teams significantly more powerful than others. Twitch Rivals' esports community manager, Blake 'CloudFuel' Tull decided to redraft the teams in order to prevent one team dominating the field and creating a boring competition, as happened with the last Twitch Rivals event in March which saw TSM's Phillip 'ImperialHal' Dosen and Eric 'Snip3down' Wrona drafted to the same team and romp to victory.

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