The east will soon feature a tournament with a prize pool bigger than any season of APEX, and it won't be in Korea or China.
Blizzard Taiwan has officially announced the Overwatch Pacific Championship, an 8.3 million TWD (approximately $272,000) eight team league in which the winner will take home 3 million TWD (about $98,000). Matches will be played in Blizzard's brand new esports stadium in Taipei for 13 weeks beginning April 8th. According to Overwatch SEA's official Facebook page, matches will be played offline and streamed each week during the season and streamed on goblizzard.tw/esports/live each week during the season from Friday through Sunday.
The eight invited teams come from several different countries and regions starved of massive tournaments that would put them into the minds of westerners. Three Taiwanese teams will be joined by two Japanese teams, a Thai team, an Australian team, and a team from Hong Kong. They are:
- ahq e-Sports Club
- Blank Esports
- DeToNator.GOLD
- Flash Wolves
- FireBall
- Hong Kong Attitude
- Machi Esports
- SunSister
This will be the first opportunity for many in North America and Europe to see these teams play. Despite being an unfamiliar name, Blank Esports may have the most familiar roster for those on either side of the Atlantic, as it appears a brand new organization has picked up Fusion Girls - make sure check out Sideshow's interview with their captain, Rqt. The FireBall roster may be familiar to those who watched the Overwatch World Cup, EnVy Mickie's former team and World Cup Cinderellas sWeed Time have been picked up by the FireBall org. Flash Wolves will feature Zonda, a popular Taiwanese streamer and former League of Legends pro. DeToNator.GOLD may be a familiar name to some, as a few of Japan's most popular Overwatch streamers, StylishNoob, SPYGEA, and YamatoN are all signed with the organization, although YamatoN is listed as the team's manager. DeToNator.GOLD also participated in APAC Premier last fall, although they took an early exit.
Every team participating will be taking a hefty sum of money with them at the end of the tournament, with the 7th and 8th place teams expected to take home almost as much as the total grand prize for either region of the ongoing Overwatch PIT Championship. The prize pool will be split between the participants like this:
- 1st - 3,000,000 TWD (~$98,000)
- 2nd - 1,500,000 TWD (~$49,000)
- 3rd - 1,000,000 TWD (~$32,000)
- 4th - 800,000 TWD (~$26,000)
- 5th-6th - 600,000 TWD (~$19,000)
- 7th-8th - 400,000 TWD (~$13,000)
More information will be posted as it is released and translated.
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