With the professional league nearing competitive readiness, Blizzard Entertainment has announced it’s intentions to start an amateur league to help develop young, fresh talent for the big stage. The league, which will be named ‘Overwatch Contenders,’ will be open to anyone Masters rank or higher looking to test their skills against the best. Amateur teams will be pitted against similarly ranked players in online leagues. This system will decide the best eight teams from across each region and they will be selected to participate the league.
The league will also a four-team playoff that will determine who will be taking home the $50,000 grand prize. Of those participating in North America, six of the teams earning spots in the inaugural season will be pitted against Team Envy and Team Rouge, two professional teams that participated at APEX, in a round robin style play in. The European server will also have an eight-team tournament with the same format. Every game of the ‘Overwatch Contenders’ league will be live-streamed on Twitch, so be sure to keep an eye out for them.
Overwatch’s competitive league has faced a wide variety of praise and criticsm. Rumors around the internet states that teams are reluctant to buy into the league, which is selling spots for somehwhere between $15-25 million.