Blizzard Entertainment has announced the 2018 Overwatch World Cup in a news post on the Overwatch League's website.
The Overwatch World Cup is a once-yearly opportunity for the best players from every country to compete against one another in Overwatch in an organized play environment. Blizzard has already begun tracking the average Skill Rating for each country's top 150 players. The Top 20 Countries with the highest collective SR at the end of the qualification period will be eligible to join their nation's team; these 20 countries are joined by France, South Korea, Thailand, and The United States which have been granted automatic tournament entry for their position as host countries for the tournament. You can track the current leaderboard via the Overwatch World Cup's website.
Following the conclusion of the qualification period, committees will be formed. These committees will include a General Manager selected by Blizzard, a Coach selected by the country's top 150 players, and a Community Lead selected by the entire country's playerbase. The committees will be revealed on May 31, 2018, and they will hold tryouts for players who have citizenship in their respective countries from July 1 - July 5, 2018. Current Overwatch League players are indeed eligible to participate in the 2018 Overwatch World Cup, and odds are strong that fans of the league are likely to see quite a few familiar faces participating this year.
Once the tryouts have been concluded, rosters of up to 12 players will be put together by the committees. The Group Stages for the 2018 Overwatch World Cup will run from August through October with the Top 8 taking place in November in Southern California.
More information regarding the 2018 Overwatch World Cup will be revealed in the coming weeks & months. Anyone who is skilled enough will be able to take a crack at joining their country's team, though fans hoping to see players such as xQc participate might end up disappointed - all committee members and players are subject to approval by Blizzard.
Will you be looking forward to the 2018 Overwatch World Cup? Who do you think will pull out a victory this year? Let us know in the comments below!
