The first Overwatch World Cup starts with a combination of the best players and personalities from countries in every corner of the globe being flown out to this year's BlizzCon, which is being held at Anaheim Convention Center in California.

The Teams

If you cast your minds back you will remember there were initial votes held for each country to vote for their favorite players that they wanted to represent their country. The four players with the most votes were picked and the Captain (Player whom had most votes) picked two more players to fill out the roster. Then several countries were invited while the rest played off for qualification resulting in the following teams competing in the final tournament:

Four teams from the Americas:

  • Brazil (Invited)
  • Canada (Invited)
  • Chile (Qualified)
  • United States (Invited)

Six teams from Europe:

  • Finland (Qualified)
  • France (Qualified)
  • Germany (Qualified)
  • Russia (Qualified)
  • Spain (Qualified)
  • Sweden (Qualified)

Six team from the APAC Region:

  • Australia (Invited)
  • China (Invited)
  • Chinese Taipei (Qualified)
  • Singapore (Qualified)
  • South Korea (Invited)
  • Thailand (Qualified)

The Coverage

The world cup will be featuring some of the best and most recognizable talent in the world, playing for the honor of becoming the winners of the first ever Overwatch World Cup. The event will start on the 29th October and climax on the 5th of November. It will begin with a best of three Round Robin Group Stage with the sixteen teams broken down into four groups of four, with the top two teams advancing to the Knockout Bracket. From there it will be single elimination and best of three matches as we move through the Quarter-finals and Semi-finals. Concluding in a best of seven Grand Final.

There will be five days of action spread over a week:

  • Day 1 - 29th October – Group Stage Round 1
  • Day 2 - 30th October – Group Stage Round 2
  • Day 3 - 31st October – Group Stage Round 3 (Plus Tie-Breaker games if necessary)
  • Day 4 - 4th November – Quarter-finals & Semi-finals
  • Day 5 - 5th November – Bronze Medal Match and Grand Finals

The action will start at 12pm PDT/9pm CEST/ 8pm CET and will go on for 9-10 hours every day. With the exception of Day 5 which will start at 10am PDT/6pm CET and will finish sometime up to four hours after that depending on how many maps the Grand Final requires to decide a champion.

All the live brackets and stream can be found on the official BlizzCon Overwatch World Cup Page or right here on over.gg where the match ticker will feature all the games and we'll be bringing you a bunch of other content as well. Blizzard have really gone all out this year and have brought out all the big talent both in-front and behind the camera for what is sure to be a spectacular show. You can get the full BlizzCon experience with the Virtual Ticket or you can check it out on Twitch.

If the opportunity to watch what it sure to be some of the best coverage Overwatch has seen so far was not enough to entice you then surely the talent of the players on show is. While the European teams are the favorites to take home the title, you cannot underestimate the home advantage of the United States. With recent showing at the APAC and APEX tournament as well the Asian teams have proven they are not to be taken likely. The complete wildcard of Australia is not to be forgotten either as they have some talent on that roster and not many of the other countries will have too much experience against them. Whoever you are rooting for it will be a great tournament and a lot of fun to watch.

Xavier 'CommanderX' Hardy is a former top level TeamFortress2 Caster and Analyst.
Follow @Xavierhardy8