Season one of Overwatch Contenders in both Europe and North America will begin this week.
Eight teams will participate in each region, featuring a mixture of invited teams, qualified teams, and teams that bought-in to the league. In North America, invited teams EnVyUs and Rogue will face Immortals, FNRGFE, Kungarna, FaZe Clan, Detroit Renegades, and EnVision. Laser Kittenz (now Cloud9), eUnited, 123, Bazooka Puppiez, Singularity, Gigantti, Misfits, and GamersOrigin will compete in the European division.
Neither GamersOrigin nor Envision qualified for Overwatch Contenders. Both bought into the tournament by acquiring spots from disbanded teams Movistar Riders and Team Liquid, respectively. Despite placing seventh in season zero EnVision initially failed to qualify, as only the top six in North American moved forward in the tournament.
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GamersOrigin fared much worse in Europe’s season zero, earning 13th in the tournament.
Season one kicks off with a six week regular season that will play out over the course of the next six weekends. Each team will play a four-map set against every other team in the region, according to Blizzard. The top four teams in each region will then move on to the season one playoff stage—an offline event—to determine a winner. Information about the offline playoffs will be released “in the future,” Blizzard said.
Broadcasts on Saturdays and Sundays will begin with the European region at 10am PT. The North American matches will follow. Come week three, Blizzard will introduce Friday matches that alternate between each region. Friday broadcasts in North America will begin at 5pm PT, while the European Friday stream will begin at 9am PT.
The full schedule is as follows.
- Week 1: Aug. 19-20
- Week 2: Aug. 26-27
- Week 3: Sept. 1 (North American Friday), Sept. 2-3
- Week 4: Sept. 8 (European Friday), Sept. 9-10
- Week 5: Sept. 15 (North American Friday), Sept. 16-17
- Week 6: Sept. 22 (European Friday), Sept. 23-24
- Offline Playoffs and Finals – Oct. 7-8
All matches will be streamed on the Overwatch Twitch page.
