When the Overwatch League was forced to put their season on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic it was, like many sports leagues across the world, left facing a lot of questions. Can we restart the season? How would we do that? What is the best way to keep our players safe?
Eventually, the league chose to go with an online only format that has seen a lot of success so far. The matches are close and exciting, there have been very few technical difficulties, and the introduction of new rules have led to one of the best versions of the game yet. The only problem has been the imbalance in games played so far. When the league restarted there were multiple teams that had played two games at most. Many hadn’t played a game at all due to COVID-19.
The league was left with a question. Should they continue with the regular season format they had planned on using and cut their losses, or attempt something a little bit different? They went with the latter and opted for a mid-season tournament that gave fans the opportunity to see a lot of matchups they hadn’t had a chance to see yet. It was also a great way for a lot of teams to rack up the necessary amount of games needed to separate the strongest teams for a playoff format later down the line.
That first tournament last month was so successful that on Monday the Overwatch League announced two more tournaments and gave an insight into how the eventual playoff seedings will form up.
The Overwatch League today announced its Summer Showdown, a tournament that will run over the next four weeks of its season. The new tournament is very similar to last month’s successful May Melee, which was well-received by fans, teams, and players.
Beginning June 13 and running through the last three weeks of June, all 20 teams will play qualifier matches (three per team in North America and four in Asia). Team records, map scores, and standard tiebreakers in those qualifier matches will determine team seeding in two regional tournaments in North America (July 3-5) and Asia (July 4-5). The schedule for all qualifiers matches – which count toward the regular season standings – is available online at overwatchleague.com/schedule.
Both tournaments have a combined US $275,000 prize pool. For more information on the structure of the tournaments, including rules and brackets for each, visit overwatchleague.com.
After the Summer Showdown, there will be a final tournament in a similar format, with qualifier matches and bracket play in Asia and North America. This will be followed by balancing matches to get all teams to 21 matches played before playoffs begin. The 2020 playoffs, like the tournaments, will be played without a Hero Pool. More details on 2020 playoffs and Grand Finals will be announced later this summer.
It makes sense that after looking at the success of the first tournament the Overwatch League would see this as an opportunity to build on that success with further tournament formats. Between the qualifiers and seeding matches, you will always have teams playing matches that matter and are building towards something. Obviously, the better you do in the tournament the better opportunity you have to reach the 21 game minimum for the playoffs. Those who fail to get far have to play more matches later on which means that those last few matches of the season will likely feature a fierce playoff race for the final spots and better seeding.
It is impressive how the Overwatch League has managed to take a season that at one point felt lost and turn it into a very exciting positive. Let’s see if they can keep the momentum going with two incredible tournaments and what will hopefully be an even more exciting playoff.
The results of these tournaments will also be interesting because it makes you wonder if this is going to lead to another new format change next season. Initially, the league used a stage format, with teams playing four mini seasons while also maintaining an overall record throughout the year. Season 3 was supposed to be a more standard regular season with no stages, but obviously COVID-19 changed that. Could we see these multiple tournaments spread out throughout the season format become the main driving force of the league next year? It certainly feels possible with how successful they have been so far.