There is an expectation that developers Blizzard will be in hand on organising their own Overwatch tournament one day. While they do have a say in the currently running ESL Atlantic Showdown, the Overwatch World Cup is a total in-house endeavour, and it is not just an ordinary e-sports event. Instead of letting just the pro-teams participate, the community- that means whoever that owns a copy of Overwatch- gets to vote on what team will be representing their respective countries, so high-ranking players, members of the community and pro teams all get a fair shot on carrying their national banner.
Once of each country, listed below, has a representative team, these teams will duke it out in a best of three, single-elimination online qualifiers. Six teams from Europe, six from Asia-Pacific, and four from the Americas will be selected to go to Blizzcon and face off in a best-of-three, round-robin group stage then a best-of-five, single elimination finals.
There will be no prize pool for the event, as it is more of an exhibition event rather than a proper tournament. Though the 16 teams qualified will get a free trip to Blizzcon, Blizzard’s annual convention, and some appearance fees.
The catch is, the countries marked with asterisks, the US, Canada, Brazil, China, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand will gained automatic qualification to the finals “due to a variety of factors, including server locations, regional infrastructure and connectivity, and other geographical considerations”. With only six slots for Asia-Pacific and four of them already secured, it will be a tough challenge for the rest of the pact, including Malaysia, to secure the remaining two slots.
We will let you know when the voting starts so we can select a good team to represent Malaysia, and hopefully makes us all proud!