It’s not all that often a new game establishes itself as top esport, so March 2025 will no doubt go down in history as the month Marvel Rivals really arrived on the scene.
It has been a busy month, there’s been more tournaments than we can cover, major changes to multiple games’ ecosystems and of course some of the usual WTF moments esports always delivers. But that’s why we all love esports, there’s never a dull moment and there’s always something to talk about!
As April gets underway, it’s time to look back on the biggest stories from March, and with a lot of games really kicking off their 2025 seasons by now, it’s been getting very busy. There has been major events all around the globe, some major online events that have performed very well and a lot of future plans announced. So, let’s get into the action.
Industry News
Tekken Added To EWC 2025 Line up
The Esports World Cup line up for 2025 continues to grow, with Tekken 8 being the latest game added to the event. This will be a return for the fighting game, with Lim ‘Ulsan‘ Soo-hoon taking the win at least year’s Tekken 8 tournament out in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Tekken joins an already stacked fighting games roster for EWC 2025, that includes Street Fighter and the yet to be released FATAL FURY: City of the Wolves, giving genre fans a lot to look forward to this summer.
G2 Completes Investment Round
G2 Esports, one of the biggest organisations in the world, has announced a new seven figure series B funding round, led by WISE Ventures. The capital from the funding round will be used to help G2 expand into new titles, likely with an eye on the EWC Club Championship, and for further investment into the org’s Call Of Duty League team, which it acquired in late 2023. There are also plans to expand the G2 app and produce even more content for fans to enjoy.
TFT Get’s New Circuit
After a few years of incredibly successful tournaments with not too much progression from one to the next, the Teamfight Tactics esports scene is being overhauled to give top players a little more consistency. Now, with each in game set, there will be three new Tier 1 tournaments which the top 32 players from the previous set will qualify for. The overall winner will qualify for the Tactician’s Crown, where the big money and inter-region competition will still take place, but these regional tournaments will give more action and stability to the top players, instead of having to play countless very easy matches just to qualify for the final stages of top events. It’s stability the TFT scene has needed for a while, and will surely only boost the viewership as it is easier for players to make a consistent name for themselves.
EWC Reveals Club Partner Program Teams
The Esports World Cup Foundation has also announced that 40 teams have joined the revamped EWC Club Partner Program, with the chance to earn up to $1 million based on promotional campaigns and content created around the event. These teams are not guaranteed spots in any of the tournaments at EWC, but instead have the opportunity to earn a share of the partner program fund by executing campaigns and creating content around the event. The 40 teams are made up of the top eight clubs from last year’s event and 32 that have been selected as part of an application process that included around 200 clubs. Names included include the likes of Fnatic, Team Falcons and 100 Thieves as well as stronger representation from other regions such as S8UL from India and some of the top Chinese orgs that were selected in partnership with Tencent.
French Team Union
12 top clubs from France have taken the somewhat unusual step of banding together and forming the French Union of Professional Esports Clubs (UFCEP). The new group, headed by Team Vitality Co-founder and CEO Nicolas Maurer, features representatives from the biggest French orgs, and aims to help shape the future of French esports by interacting and guiding tournament organisers, publishers and government bodies. Interestingly, the union is completely open, with any esports org that meets the eligibility criteria automatically becoming a member. That should mean this is a truly open group for the French scene and help benefit the region as a whole, not just the ones who came up with the idea first.
LoL Stays Fearless As World’s Prize Pool Is Boosted
The early stages of the 2025 League of Legends pro scene served as a bit of a test bed for the game’s competitive format, with the Fearless Draft mode being tested in top competitions. The simple explanation of this mode is that a team may not choose the same champion twice in a match, meaning if you play them in game one, they are unavailable to select in game two and three. It’s designed to add more variety to the team compositions at the top level of LoL, which at times was getting stale, and the test has been a wild success. As a result, Riot is now implementing it across top LoL competitions for the rest of the year, which should only further interest in the biggest competitions. Speaking of which, the Global Head of LoL Esports, Chris Greeley, announced this month that the LoL World Championship will have a whopping $5 million prize pool this year, a significant increase over the $2.25 million from last year.
Competitive Results
Image credit: Moon Suwon, Riot Games
Capcom Cup
In what is a moment that will go down in FGC history, Japanese Street Fighter player Kakeru managed to win the Capcom Cup in his home country, becoming world champion for the first time. The win comes with a nice $1 million first place prize, but the emotion of becoming world champion in front of a home crowd will likely be the more rewarding of the two. It was a dominant display by the 27 year old, only dropping a single game in the entire finals bracket.
League of Legends First Stand
The first ever League of Legends First Stand tournament took place this month, with the new international event designed to offer up more international competition early in the season. The debut iteration, which was held in Seoul, South Korea, was won by local team Hanwha Life Esports, but perhaps the biggest surprise was LEC team Karmine Corp, an org with very limited international experience, coming second. There’s no doubt the event was a success and is very likely to become a regular feature in the LoL calendar, but for now the focus returns to the regional leagues, which resumed towards the end of the month.
Atlanta FaZe Triumphs In The Call of Duty League Major 2
Atlanta FaZe took home the Call of Duty League Major 2 trophy this month, their second major victory this season in what is starting to look like a great year for them. As one of the favourites heading into the event expectations were high, and they met them with ease, going through the bracket relatively smoothly and eventually destroying the Vancouver Surge 4-0 in the grand final.
Karmine Corp Wins The RLCS Birmingham Major
French organisation Karmine Corp won the RLCS Birmingham Major in dominating fashion, beating The Ultimates in a 4-0 clean sweep in the final, one of only a handful of times it has happened in Rocket League history. They were dominant throughout the event, going 3-0 in the Swiss Stage before cruising through the quarter and semi finals. The event was packed with passionate fans and showcased the best Rocket League teams from around the world in an impressive show.
Marvel Rivals
March 2025 will likely be remembered as the month that Marvel Rivals really arrived on the esports scene. After a massively successful launch late last year, a grassroots competitive scene quickly appeared and now things have taken a step up. Over the past few weeks multiple $100,000 tournaments have taken place around the world, and major orgs have signed teams, with 100 Thieves winning the NA Invitational and Virtus.Protaking the EMEA competition. Viewership numbers also continue to grow, with Esports Charts reporting that the NA competition peaked at a massive 71,099 concurrent viewers.
ESL One Raleigh, IEM Melbourne Headline April Events
A Dota 2 LAN event is heading to North America for the first time since 2023, with ESL One Raleigh set to welcome fans and 12 of the top Dota 2 teams from around the world. There’s $1 million up for grabs and tickets are still available for the finals weekend if you want to watch some Dota. On the other side of the world the Counter-Strike scene is heading back under for what is sure to be another ruckus event in Melbourne, with the IEM series heading back there after previous success. April will also see the return of the Apex Legends ALGS series for a new season, while the Overwatch Champions Series 2025 Champions Clash will head to Hangzhou, China.
And finally…
Image Credit: DreamLeague
Dota 2 DreamLeague Season 25 Final Takes Days To Complete
Mercifully, the days of major tech delays in esports are mostly behind us, but Dota 2 fans were taken back to the early 2010s thanks to a multi-day delay for the final of DreamLeague Season 25. The grand final between Tundra Esports and Team Spirit started on March 2, but during game four of the best of five, Team Spirit was targeted with a denial-of-service attack that forced the final to be delayed until March 4. The final was eventually played out, with Spirit taking a close 3-2 win over Tundra, with no further interruptions. While this was a somewhat disappointing end to a great tournament, it’s important to remember just how far we have come as an industry, where this is now a very rare occurrence and not something to be expected.
