Overwatch World Cup 2018 Announced- Changes Made to the Committee & Player Qualification

Mar 28, 2018

Details on the qualifications for the 2018 Overwatch World Cup were announced on March 27th. This year’s OWWC, just like the last one, will have the Group Stages hosted in 4 countries, and teams that make it to the Finals from there will be going to BlizzCon in November to compete.

There have been many changes made to this year’s OWWC. The top 100 players based on SR from each country, and a total of 32 countries were selected as participants last year. However, in this year’s tournament, the countries placed 20th and above in the rankings, based on the SR of their top 150 players, will be able to participate alongside the hosting countries. Including the host countries, a total of 24 teams will be able to play in the tournament. This year’s host countries will be South Korea, the USA, Thailand, and France. The hosting countries will automatically qualify for the tournament.

▲ The top 20 countries in the rankings and the 4 host countries may participate in the OWWC.

Also, the way that the National Competition Committees are formed and selected has changed- there will be a general manager selected by Blizzard, a coach selected by the country’s top 150 players, and a community lead selected by all players in the country via voting.

Once the voting for each committee has ended, the final results of the National Competition Committee will be announced on May 31st. These committees will be supporting their teams during the Group Stage and Finals, and will be compensated for all the time and effort they put forward.

▲ There has been a change to how the National Competition Committees are formed and selected.

Also, the players participating in the OWWC will be selected from the tryouts held from June 1st to July 5th. All players, including the OWL members, can participate in the tryouts, and the committees will need to submit their rosters with a maximum of 12 players by July 5th. After a final checkup, a total of 7 players will be selected to participate in the OWWC.

The procedure after the selection of committees and rosters is same as 2017. Since 24 countries will be participating, there will be 6 teams in each group; once the brackets are out, the teams in each group will proceed to the Group Stage in the 4 hosting countries, South Korea, USA, Thailand, and France, from August to October.

Further details can be found here on the official OWWC website.