Originally posted at http://www.omnicpost.com/2018/05/03/overwatch-world-cup-24-teams-compete-in-this-years-world-cup/
Blizzard has announced the teams that will compete in the 2018 Overwatch World Cup. Last year’s World Cup was full of suspense all the way from the group stages to Blizzcon. South Korea’s team, composed of New York Excelsior’s Jong-yeol “Saebyeolbe” Park and Dong-gyu “Mano” Kim, XL2’s (NYXL’s academy team) Yeon-oh “Fl0w3R” Hwang, and Seoul Dynasty’s Je-hong “ryujehong” Ryu, Joon-hyuk “zunba” Kim, and Jin-mo “tobi” Yang, took the championship last year.
24 countries, 4 Group Stages.
Vote for your 2018 World Cup committee members today!
🌎🏆 https://t.co/9XGCrVbR8I pic.twitter.com/6H1RZEYog5
— Overwatch (@PlayOverwatch) May 2, 2018
The Schedule
Phase 1 started in March-April with country qualifications for the Overwatch World Cup. The four host countries — the United States, South Korea, Thailand, and France — automatically qualify. China also qualified with the highest average SR, followed by Sweden and the United Kingdom.
The next phase started yesterday for each nation’s Competition Committee, which is composed of a general manager (GM), coach, and community lead. GMs are selected by Blizzard, coaches are selected by the country’s top 150 players, and community leads are selected by all players for that country.
Upcoming phases are player tryouts in June-July, followed by group stages in August-October (which will most likely start after Overwatch League ends on August 12). This year, 24 teams are distributed among 4 groups with the top 2 teams in each group advancing to the playoff stage at Blizzcon in November.
Here are the teams that will be competing in the Overwatch World Cup at the location they will compete:
South Korea:
- Russia
- Finland
- Chinese Taipei
- South Korea
- Japan
- Hong Kong
United States:
- United States
- Canada
- Austria
- Brazil
- Switzerland
- Norway
Thailand:
- China
- Thailand
- Australia
- Spain
- Sweden
- Denmark
France:
- United Kingdom
- France
- Germany
- Poland
- Netherlands
- Italy
