EWC’s new Club Championship scoring: Fairer, but still flawed

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The Esports World Cup’s Club Championship has become one of the centerpieces of competitive team esports, pushing organizations to grow and evolve across multiple titles. With the 2025 edition, the tournament has introduced significant changes aimed at making the competition more balanced, rewarding, and exciting, from a bigger prize pool to a revamped ranking points system. 

But while progress has been made, some challenges, especially around fair point distribution, still remain. In this article, we’ll dive into the key changes, what they mean for clubs, and the ongoing questions organizers need to address as they look toward the future.

What’s new in the Club Championship points distribution?

Compared to last year’s Esports World Cup, the Club Championship format has undergone major changes. The main one is more ranking points and a new distribution system. 

At EWC 2024, a total of 2,390 ranking points were up for grabs across all tournaments. The winner of each event consistently earned 1,000 points, while the rest of the top 8 received varying amounts based on the tournament format. Previously, there were five different distribution systems, each offering distinct point rewards for placements like 3rd, 5th, and 7th. In EWC 2025, that number has been streamlined to just three models.

The classic format, where each placement receives a different point reward:

At EWC 2025, the classic format is used in Rennsport tournaments, as well as in battle royale titles like Apex Legends, Free Fire, PUBG, PUBG Mobile, and CoD: Warzone. In short, it’s applied in competitions where the champion is decided by the total points earned over a fixed number of rounds, rather than through direct elimination or head-to-head matchups.

The Olympic-style format, where all players in a given stage receive equal point rewards:

The Olympic-style format is used in tournaments for Street Fighter 6, Tekken 8, and Teamfight Tactics. This system doesn’t include separate placement matches for 3rd, 5th, or 7th place within the single-elimination bracket.

The hybrid format, which includes a distinct reward for 3rd place:

The hybrid format awards different point values for 3rd and 4th place, while teams finishing 5th through 8th all receive the same amount. This system wasn’t used at EWC 2024, although a few similar models were implemented.

The hybrid format is one of the most widely used at EWC 2025. Ranking points will be awarded under this system in tournaments for Valorant, Dota 2, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, League of Legends, Counter-Strike, and other titles. These events are typically played in a single-elimination format, but with a required third-place match.

In this way, the EWC 2025 organizers have substantially increased the amount of Club Championship points awarded at tournaments, narrowing the gap somewhat between the champion and the rest of the competitors. The placement rewards at Esports World Cup 2025 events are now much more balanced. The gap between the champion and the rest of the top 8 has narrowed, making the Club Championship race tighter and more exciting. First place at a tournament remains a necessary condition for competing in the Club Championship race, but no longer gives a club such a significant advantage in the rankings as it did before. Now, consistent high placements across different games can benefit a club more than a single championship in one specific title.

While the organizers streamlined the number of point distribution systems, this has led to other challenges. Different games now award varying amounts of ranking points for the Club Championship, which can seem unfair at first glance.

For instance, a club whose player finishes 8th at the Apex Legends Global Series: 2025 Midseason Playoffs earns just 50 points, while an 8th-place finish at Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves nets a whopping 200 points. This creates an uneven playing field — teams/participants in different tournament formats aren’t competing under the same conditions.

In short, the system still favors clubs that compete in certain games over others, making it strategically more rewarding for esports organizations to invest in specific titles if they want to climb the Club Championship leaderboard.

How can the system be made fair for everyone?

In fact, the EWC 2025 organizers just need to slightly lower the points awarded in the Olympic format as follows:

If a more precise split of points between 3rd and 4th place is needed, like in the hybrid format, a 500/300 ratio can be used. This ensures that an equal total amount of Club Championship ranking points is distributed across all games. There’s still room to fine-tune things, and plenty of opportunities for organizers to build on ahead of the Esports World Cup 2026.