King of the Desert IV

King of the Desert is one of the most prestigious tournaments in Age of Empires II, and it is back with its fourth iteration. King of the Desert IV is a tournament played solely on the map Arabia and will span across four weeks - starting Thursday the 18th of November and ends with the grand final on Sunday the 12th of December.

King of the Desert IV invites sixteen of the best players in the world back to the event while simultaneously allowing another sixteen players to qualify in the qualification stage, taking place on the 30th and 31st of October - allowing up to 512 players a chance to win a spot in the main event.

The main event will start off with a single-elimination bracket before branching out into a group stage that has drawn inspiration from both the swiss system and the GSL system used in previous iterations. The final stage of the event will once again be played as single-elimination until the new King of the Desert has been crowned.

The total prize pool of the tournament is $75,000.00 and is distributed to the winners in the following order.

1st place: $20,000.00
2nd place: $10,000.00
3rd place: $6,000.00
4th place: 5,000.00
5th to 8th place: $2,500.00
9th to 12th place: $1,750.00
13th to 16th place: $1,250.00
17th to 32nd place: $600.00
33rd to 48th place: $150.00

The event is sponsored by Microsoft, PinzTec and MsHuggah.