Fans have been buzzing since Blizzard announced the opening of Overwatch Contenders for NA and European regions.

Overwatch Contenders has been getting a lot of attention from all over the world, to the point where all the traffic caused the official website to go down. Whilst over 200 teams signed up to participate on the first day of open signups in both regions, discussions related to the tournament have been actively ongoing.

When the announcement was made, Christopher ‘MonteCristo’ Mykles, a well-known esports caster for League of Legends who is now casting for Overwatch, welcomed the news saying “Contenders will be the first step towards the Overwatch League for players moving forward.” 

He wasn’t the only one to greet these news: Coach Kyle ‘KyKy’ Souder from EnVyUs, the team automatically seeded to Season One, commented that, “I think the league is a good idea to bring hype back to Overwatch, as it is dying out in a way with nothing going on in the west.”

He also expressed his confidence regarding the tournament by saying, “I would say of all the western teams, EnVyUs has the most diversity through different metas and possibly Cloud 9 as well. Everyone on the team is very confident that we can do well when we perform to our expectations, which include winning APEX Season Three, and I think winning a regional NA tournament should be much easier than that."

Korea, the region that became victorious in last year’s World Cup, welcomed the announcement as well. Joonhyuk ‘zunba’ Kim, who has outperformed many in the World Cup with his Zarya plays, commented that “If there are big tournaments to be held overseas, many great teams will advance as the gaming quality greatly improves.”

Along with this, he expressed his determination for the upcoming competitions, by saying, “I believe that Rogue and EnVyUs will excell in Season One. Since there are many great teams, we will be preparing ourselves as we watch other team’s games.”

The Open Qualifier for Overwatch Contenders will be start on June 3rd In NA region, and will be broadcasted via TwitchTV and MLG.TV.