A Deep Dive into Ultra Arena Leagues: Incorporating Esports Leagues with Web3

2024 is destined to be a huge year for Ultra and core applications like Ultra Arena. We’re well on our way to making Arena an established esports application in web3, and we’re excited to announce one of the core features coming to the application — Ultra Arena Leagues.

What are Ultra Arena Leagues?

Ultra Arena Leagues is Ultra Arena’s latest tournament structure, designed to add a new dimension to the esports world. Utilizing Ultra’s Uniq standard, digital assets will innovate player participation, team management for owners, and prize pool distribution.

Players of all skill levels will have the chance to compete and demonstrate their abilities in their favorite games, in a new, longer-term tournament framework.

Key Challenges within the Esports Industry

The Ultra Arena League vision addresses core challenges in esports:

Limited Player Empowerment

• Dominance by large organizations restricts new players’ recognition.
• Ultra Arena Leagues provides open leaderboards and transparent recruitment, ensuring equal growth opportunities.
• The goal of Arena Leagues is to provide a platform for amateur players to take their games to the next level.

Restrictive Economic Models

• Major entities control revenue streams, limiting financial benefits for smaller teams.
• Arena Leagues uses blockchain technology for diverse revenue streams and fairer reward distribution.

Lack of Community Influence

• Esports platforms often ignore community feedback, causing disconnects.
• Arena Leagues prioritizes community engagement with feedback mechanisms and participatory events.

Limited Opportunities for Game Developers

• Mainstream games dominate traditional esports, sidelining indie developers.
• Arena Leagues include indie games in tournaments, offering exposure and traction in competitive gaming.

Ultra Arena Leagues will leverage the following:

• Blockchain integration: Blockchain features enable player achievements to become tangible and tradable rewards.
• Digital assets: Providing new levels of ownership for everyone involved.
• Diverse competition formats: From solo amateur leaderboards to team-based pro leagues, there’s something for everyone in Leagues.
• Inclusivity: Open format competitive gaming enables emerging talent to shine in the esports arena
• Community focus: A commitment to decentralization of the league dynamics through direct community ownership.
• Fair economic model: Clear distribution of earnings and rewards among players, team owners, and partners.

How will an Ultra Arena League work?

Leagues will form a new tournament framework within Ultra Arena, and will be structured on four key principles:

• Leaderboards
• Digital Assets
• League Treasury
• League Calendar

Leaderboards

Leaderboards will form the initial stages of a League, where players have the opportunity to showcase their skills amongst amateur and professional players. There will be two forms of Leaderboards:

Amateur Leaderboard

These are open to anyone and they focus on talent discovery and skill development. Top-ranked players within this leaderboard will become eligible to be drafted into the Pro League.

Amateur leaderboards give rising players a platform to elevate their competitive gameplay and potentially start their journey into professional esports.

We envision having player statistics tracked on-chain and visible to all. Managers will be able to use this data to help them with drafting and trading players.

Pro League Leaderboard

These will be team-based or solo competitions with players drafted from the amateur leaderboard. Once the players have been drafted from the amateur leaderboard, these players can be traded during predefined trading windows.

Digital Assets

Ultra Arena Leagues leverages digital assets and more specifically, Ultra’s Uniq standard to guarantee ownership of league slots, as well as team management.

League participation is claimed through owning a League slot which a Uniq represents, and players will be represented by a Uniq themselves after the draft has been completed.

Digital assets will also form part of the prize pool and will be distributed amongst league participants of the league upon completion.

The Uniqs associated with Arena League are split into 3 different types:

League Management Collection

League Supporters’ Collection

• This collection is who those interested in supporting the launch of a League by funding the league treasury
• Gain the ability to influence the changes and improvements of a League
• Holders will receive a percentage of the revenue generated by the sales of digital assets linked to the League
• This collection is optional and will only be used if the game agrees to provide additional utility to supporters

Manager Collection

• This collection is for those who are interested in owning a team slot in the league and thus becoming a team manager
• Holders will receive a percentage if the revenue generated by the sales of digital assets linked to the League and part of the prize pool for each season
• Manage an esports team including drafting and trading players

Player Collection

• This collection is for league managers who hold a team slot within the League (manager collection)
• The player collection represents players who participate within the League
• Holders of this collection will receive a percentage if the revenue generated by the sales of the digital assets linked to the League, as well as a part of the prize pool in each season

Draft Collection

• This collection will allow League managers to draft players in an orderly randomly revealed before the launch of the League season
• This collection is exclusive to holders of the manager collection, reinforcing their strategic role within the League

Other Collections

• Sponsorship slots: This Uniq represents sponsorship of an Arena League.
• Broadcasting rights: A Uniq representing the exclusivity to content for an Arena League, such as AMAs, exclusive streams, etc.)
• League, Team, or Player Merchandise: A Uniq or collection that digitally represents a physical product, branded to the owner of the collection.

League Rewards

Physical Rewards: Physical items that can be redeemed claimed and redeemed through and Ultra wallet

In-Game Rewards: An in-game digital item that can be tied to an Ultra wallet

Crypto or Fiat Rewards: A digital asset representing the fiat value or the crypto value of a specified cryptocurrency

Gated Access Rewards: A digital asset representing the key to a future event on Ultra Arena

League Treasury

The League Treasury is used as an escrow wallet that will receive a percentage share of each digital asset that League participants trade. It will be used to manage and allocate financial resources, supporting the League’s sustainability and growth.

League Calendar

For the league to be valuable it needs to follow a clear calendar that is visible to all participants.

The League Calendar is dynamically structured around the key events of the league. These events can take place in an order determined by the organizer:

Amateur Leaderboard

• Multiple leaderboards spanning several weeks for players of all levels

League Slot Sales

• During the Amateur Leaderboard, league slots are sold or given away to exclusive partners for league managers

Draft Week

• Includes the reveal of players from the draft lottery collection
• A period for trading of the players by managers from the draft lottery
• Draft night, where team managers select players
• At the end of the draft, players are created as Uniqs and placed in team managers’ wallets

Pro Leaderboard Phase 1

• A single leaderboard running over multiple weeks

Trading Window

• A period without tournaments, allowing league managers to trade players

Pro Leaderboard Phase 2

• Another single leaderboard running over multiple weeks

End of League Season

• Rewards are distributed to the league managers.

Kicking off Ultra Arena Leagues with MagicCraft

We’re excited to kick off Arena Leagues with MagicCraft, who will host the Arena League Beta! Here, both amateur and pro players will have the opportunity to compete for a prize pool adding up to $3,000 worth of assets.

You can find out more about the Arena League Beta with MagicCraft here.

About Ultra

Ultra is the first entertainment platform providing all key games industry services under a single roof, easily accessible through a single login.

Built around our PC games distribution store, Ultra provides access to countless centralized and decentralized services: Discover, buy, play and sell your games and in-game items, watch live-streaming feeds, interact with your favorite influencers, participate in contests, compete in tournaments, and much more.

Ultra has been built to provide endless value for players, a fair playing ground for developers, and a whole new world of opportunities for the games industry.

For more information, visit ultra.io and onultra.io and follow along on Twitter, YouTube, Telegram, Instagram, and Discord.