Eight teams have qualified through the Preliminary Bracket, and these challengers will soon face the eight invited teams in a single elimination knock-out phase for $5,000. The iBUYPOWER Summer Invitational hits this weekend on the 16th and 17th July, so settle in for a preview of the action.

Two of the invited teams have had to drop out of the tournament: Liquid, due to a scheduling clash, and Splyce after their roster was slashed and burnt this week. They have been replaced by nubris and 1SHOT, arguably upgrades based on recent performances. The ruleset has also shifted to match the recent paradigm shift in the scene, and the tournament will now be played with HL1 and stopwatch win conditions.

EnVyUs, Cloud9, Luminosity Gaming, Northern Gaming Red, Code7, nubris, 1SHOT, and FaZe (listed here in order of seed) go up first against the qualified teams. The battle-hardened squads who came out of the Preliminary Bracket have a hard fight ahead, but any upset here for them would be huge. The most likely upset candidates seem to be Street Hoops, Colorado Clutch, or possibly Sodipop; if their opponents go in unprepared these teams have a good shot at an early knockout.

Take a look at the bracket here, and read on below for more details of how to watch and how it might play out.

Watch

You can catch one feature game from the Round of 16, and then every fixture after that, on iBUYPOWER’s Overwatch Twitch channel. Covering the action on that channel are InSight Casts: Justin “Bloodsire” Danford, Josh “Sideshow” Wilkinson, and Brennon “Bren” Hook, with Alex “dashner” Pylyshyn producing.

The Championship Bracket is scheduled to begin at 2:30 PM ET on Saturday, July 16th. After the last Quarter Final game has been played, the tournament will resume on Sunday, July 17th at 3:30 PM ET. A full schedule can be found on the announcement page from CEVO.

Championship Predictions

EnVyUs

EnVyUs have torn through the competition in every recent tournament they’ve entered. The team is currently on an enormous winning streak, plowing through the other top North American and European teams over thirty times without dropping a match - and almost every one of those was without dropping even a single map. They have easily reached the finals of the Beat Invitational and the Beyond the Summit cup, as well as picking up first place in Operation Breakout and the OG Invitational. They are quickly approaching god-like levels of dominance over the Overwatch scene and must be considered the favourites for this tournament. The real question is: who will be the first to stop them?

Cloud9

Once the kings of North America, Cloud9 has fallen along with the rest to the EnVyUs invaders. They are best placed to take down the current world number ones, but have struggled every time despite numerous opportunities. However the very fact they’ve had so many opportunities shows that they have the ability to beat any other North American team. Interestingly, in their recent clashes against Code7 (ex-Gale Force) they have been upset twice - in both the Beat Invitational and Beyond the Summit. Luckily for Cloud9 they are on the opposite side of the bracket, and would only meet them in unlikely circumstances.

Code7

My bold prediction for this tournament is to place Code7 above Luminosity Gaming. They have been on hot form of late, beating Cloud9 and Liquid in the Beat Invitational as well as beating Cloud9, Luminosity, and Northern Gaming Red in Beyond the Summit. If they are able to beat Northern Gaming Red again in this tournament they will come up against the juggernauts of EnVyUs, then likely meeting LG in the Bronze place match. The route this team takes through the tournament should be highly interesting and explosive.

Luminosity Gaming

Luminosity Gaming have been seeded 3rd, placing them out of the demolition zone EnVyUs occupy. They instead will have to overcome their perennial enemies nubris and Cloud9 to reach the final, but it’s highly possible for this squad. They have beaten both of them in recent tournaments, but on the balance of likelihood I don’t see this as LG’s time to shine. They will have to fight hard to overcome every team they meet in the bracket - among the best in North America, fourth is not a bad placing.