Published , by Ozzie Mejia
Published , by Ozzie Mejia
Ten of the top Overwatch-playing nations in the world are coming to Anaheim, CA this weekend to attend this year's BlizzCon. There, they will compete to see which country is the very best at Blizzard's team-based shooter. The Overwatch World Cup has returned and only one team can take home the gold.
In an uncommon move, Blizzard has not divulged the prize pool for the Overwatch World Cup. However, past years have been more about pride than money. Last year's participants were all awarded a flat $16,000 prize. While Blizzard has not revealed the prize money for this year, expect the 2019 participants to take home roughly the same amount. The Overwatch World Cup is mainly about bragging rights and the opportunity for teams to represent their home countries.
The Overwatch World Cup preliminaries are set to begin this Thursday, with a full bracketed tournament playing out over the course of the day. These matches will be best-of-three. Only five teams will advance into the Group Stages, which will play out on Friday. The Group Stage rounds will see all teams play everyone from their group in matches of three maps a piece. The top six teams from the Group Stages will advance to the Medal Round on Saturday, with the top teams from Group A and Group B receiving byes. These matches are best-of-five. At the end, the top three teams will receive medals.
Here's the full schedule and the teams set to compete:
When brackets are posted, we will be sure to update this post.
If you're looking to watch the action, you can jump in either through the BlizzCon Virtual Ticket or for free through the Overwatch League Twitch channel. Twitch will also be broadcasting the Overwatch World Cup in multiple languages. Check out the Overwatch League website for more information.
Blizzard will regularly update the Overwatch YouTube channel with full matches that can be viewed on demand.