The Elite Classic III Is Upon Us!

The Elite Classic returns for its third edition, this year the event is part of the EGC Masters Series. The Elite Classic III is the second S-Tier Age of Empires IV event of 2025 with a $25,000 prize pool sponsored by World’s Edge!

Qualifiers start on April 19th and 20th, and the Main Event runs from April 26th to May 18th.

What is the EGC Masters Series?

The EGC Masters Series is the first global esports circuit in Age of Empires IV, featuring the best players from around the world. Each major event in the EGC Masters Series will award a qualifying seat to the circuit’s final event, with EMS points awarded for players who reach the main stages.

Then, the EMS points will be used as a metric for seeding in later tournaments. And the best players at the end of the circuit will qualify for the final event!

Direct link to the league: https://www.start.gg/league/egc-masters-series/details

Firstly, four players are invited based on the EGC Master Series, four players will qualify based on the Tournament Elo rating at the seeding cutoff, and eight players will qualify through the Qualification Phase. Two separate qualifiers will take place on April 19th and 20th, with four players advancing to the Main Event each day! All rounds will be best of 3, with the exception of the qualifying round which will be best of 5. There are a total of 8 known standard maps in the qualifiers map pool, which should appeal to amateurs as well as experienced players!

After that, the first stage of the Main Event will be a Round Robin Group Stage format, with eight players per group. Three new maps from Knights of Cross and Rose will be added for the Main Event, promising intense new strategies. Especially with the two newest civs to have joined the battle, the Knights Templar and the House of Lancaster! We will seed the players based on the Tournament Elo rating, where players are randomly seeded every two players. This means that Seed 1 will be randomly assigned to one group, and Seed 2 will be randomly assigned to the opposite group. The same process will be repeated with Seeds 3 & 4, Seeds 5 & 6, etc. Only half of them will be able to make it to the Playoffs, and for each series won in the group stage, the winner will be awarded an extra $50!

As the final stage, the Playoffs! The first player in each group will advance to the Semi-Finals, the second player will advance to the Round of 6, and the third and fourth players in each group will advance to the Round of 8. The Playoffs will be a single elimination bracket with a third place match, where all series are best of 7, at the exception of the third place match which is best of 5 and the Grand Final which is best of 9.

But that’s not all! The Silver League will also be returning!

Thanks to our Kickstarter backers, up to sixteen players who didn’t make it to the Main Event will have the opportunity to compete in the Silver League, which is an event for Age of Empires IV‘s up-and-coming players. In fact, players like Anotand, kiljardi, or Baltune played in the very first Silver League back in the first edition of The Elite Classic. They are now some of the best players in Age of Empires IV!

The Silver League will follow the same format as the Main Event, with a Round Robin Group Stage in best of 3. A total of 8 players will advance to the Playoffs, with the Rounds of 8 and 6 played as best of 5, the Semi-Finals in best of 7, and the Final in best of 9. A total prize pool of $500 will be awarded in the Silver League.