Blizzard Entertainment Announces The 2nd Overwatch World Cup; The Final Will Be Held in BlizzCon 2017
Blizzard Entertainment announced this Thursday, March 30 to start the first phase of the 2nd Overwatch World Cup. The tournament will have its playoffs and final during the BlizzCon 2017 in November.
The 2nd Overwatch World Cup will double the number of represented nations than last year's participants according to Game Rant. This year's tournament will have 32 nations to compete in the tournament which will be divided into four phases. The first phase has begun Thursday following the announcement, and Blizzard will select top 100 players from 50 countries for the invitation to join the tournament.
From the 50 countries, Blizzard will determine 32 nations that will participate in the 2nd Overwatch World Cup. Th selection process will end on April 24. Subsequently, the second phase will begin, in which the participating nations will vote for the rosters that will represent the nations to the Overwatch World Cup National Committee. The vote will select the players from the nomination list provided by Blizzard as reported by PC Gamer.
The third phase of the 2nd Overwatch World Cup will start the tournament, which will divide the participating nations into several groups and the participating nations will compete to determine the winner for each group. Afterward, the playoffs will begin and followed by the final in the BlizzCon 2017 in November.
South Korea, the last year's champion will come back to defend its title, and the country is predicted to win the 2nd Overwatch World Cup for the second time. In South Korea, Overwatch has gained a huge popularity since its release in May 2016. Many South Korean gamers are addicted to the first person shooter video game and they usually play in the Internet cafe.
The rising popularity of Overwatch in South Korea has made many gamers to play the game by hourly rate from Battle.net and when the hourly rate expire. Last year's runner-up Russia also has many high scoring players and will become the top contender in the tournament. Watch IGN report on the 2nd Overwatch World Cup below: