Update April 30, 2017: Now that all 32 countries have been locked in for the group stages of the Overwatch World Cup, people can now vote for their country’s Competition Committee. Chosen from a shortlist of experts compiled by Blizzard, each Competition Committee has the all-important task of picking the players who will represent their nation in the group stages of the Overwatch World Cup.
Get trained up for next year’s Overwatch World Cup with our list of PC shooters.
Along with picking their country’s strongest players, each three-person Competition Committee will travel with their team, acting as coaches as they try to make it through the group stage and finals of the tournament.
Each person gets three votes for their nation’s Competition Committee, with the voting stage lasting up until May 5. On May 8, the committee members of each nation will be announced.
You can find more information about your nation’s representatives over on the Overwatch World Cup website. Blizzard will most likely announce the dates for each region’s group stage once all of the Competition Committees have been decided.
Update April 26, 2017:the 32 countries who will compete in the Overwatch World Cup have been decided.
The first stage of the Overwatch World Cup has wrapped up, and we now know the 32 countries who have qualified. The top 100 players in countries from around the world have been grinding to push up their national average skill rating (SR), with the top 32 qualifying.
Those top 32 countries have now been decided, and are as follows, along with their average SR:
- China – 4550
- South Korea – 4522
- United States – 4470
- Sweden – 4309
- Finland – 4295
- United Kingdom – 4293
- Canada – 4291
- France – 4268
- Denmark – 4259
- Russia – 4221
- Germany – 4219
- Japan – 4184
- Australia – 4184
- Taiwan – 4162
- Netherlands – 4147
- Hong Kong – 4113
- Norway – 4101
- Poland – 4093
- Brazil – 4071
- Italy – 4068
- Spain – 4051
- Israel – 4007
- Singapore – 4002
- Thailand – 3999
- Argentina – 3992
- Turkey – 3960
- Belgium – 3942
- Vietnam – 3941
- Portugal – 3930
- New Zealand – 3922
- Austria – 3900
- Romania – 3861
As you can see, it’s close among the top three, with just 80 SR dividing leaders China and third-placed USA. That’s half the gap between third and fourth, with Sweden 161 points behind the States. The UK, ranked sixth, are almost 260 points off the pace. If you’d like to know who didn’t make the cut, the top 50 results are on the Overwatch World Cup website.
Next, the actual teams that will represent those countries have to be decided. Check out our coverage of the original announcement (below) for more on how that’ll happen. The first contests will happen with the group stages in the summer.
Original story March 29, 2017:If you’re amazing at Overwatch, you could help secure your nation a spot in the Overwatch World Cup in 2017 by showing off those skills in Competitive.
From today, Blizzard are tracking the skill ratings of the top 100 Overwatch players from every country. Come April, the top 32 countries in the world will be born from this data, and they will be moved into the qualifiers.
Select players from these countries will then go on to form their 2017 Overwatch World Cup National Committee, headed up by three experts who will be responsible for setting up rosters for each stage.
Blizzard will create a shortlist for these candidates, and voting on representatives will begin once countries are set in stone.
Live qualifiers will be aired this summer, with group stage events held in Europe, North America, and Asia. In these events, eight national teams will battle head-to-head for a week, with the top two heading for the finals at BlizzCon 2017.