After the fourth open qualifying tournament came to a close at the beginning of this week, the Overwatch Open moved into its next stage. In both EU and NA, the four winners of the qualifiers join the next 12 highest ranked teams on the leaderboards to form the final group stage. Four groups, each featuring four teams, will battle in a GSL format to end with eight final teams from both Europe and North America.
If that sounds confusing then don’t worry, the Overwatch Open has a graphical explanation of the format which you can find below, as well as each group laid out at the bottom of this article. The official website for the Overwatch Open is currently inaccurate and what follows reflects the most up-to-date version of the information after clarification with FACEIT admins.
The four winners of the European qualifiers were, in order of qualification and therefore seed, Misfits, Rogue, REUNITED, and Luminosity Gaming. Their counterparts in the North American qualifiers are EnVyUs, Cloud9, Fnatic, and compLexity. This is how the groups are processed:
In each region, the top 12 teams that did not directly win a qualifier have secured a spot based on how well they placed in each tournament. For those who tied, the following rules were used as tiebreakers:
If two or more teams have the same amount of points, their placement will be determined by:
- Amount of qualifiers participated in
- Amount of higher placements
- Results among teams
If teams cannot be placed by this, teams will play in a groupstage to determine qualification.
This has resulted in teams such as Le Mixx, Other Team, and I’m Your Huckleberry narrowly missing out on a place, while two further tiebreaker games must be played this weekend: Sea Algae vs. Colorado Clutch and Bikini Beach eSports vs. The Gatekeepers for seeding.
This is not accurately reflected on the official site, but after clarification with FACEIT admins the information we have here is the most accurate and up to date.
The 16 teams that qualified will be playing their next games shortly, but both players and viewers were still holding their breath for the groups and schedule, which have now been announced. From Wednesday, 24th August to Sunday, 28th August teams will be playing the final online segments of the Overwatch Open.
As you can see from the graphic above, each group will function as its own double-elimination cup, with the winner of the Upper Bracket Final and the winner of the Lower Bracket Final making it through to play live at Turner Studios in Atlanta. This will result in eight teams from each region playing at the Live Finals to determine the winner of the Overwatch Open.
The groups and teams for the Overwatch Open, in seed order within their group, follow:
Europe
Group A
- Misfits
- ANOX
- Melty
- (Bikini Beach eSports / The Gatekeepers)
Group B
- Rogue
- Immortals (ex-WEUNITED)
- Prets
- (Bikini/Gatekeepers)
Group C
- REUNITED
- NiP
- Bringos
- bfly
Group D
- Luminosity
- Dignitas (ex-Creation eSports)
- OWKings
- NoNameYet (ex-Aera)
North America
Group A
- EnVyUs
- Splyce
- Selfless
- MONO
Group B
- Cloud9
- Sodipop
- (Clutch/Sea Algae)
- The Ecks Dees
Group C
- Fnatic
- Liquid
- (Clutch/Sea Algae)
- Geckofox
Group D
- compLexity
- NRG
- Northern Gaming
- Method
Group A will be played (for both regions) on Wednesday, 24th August and Thursday, 25th August. Group B follows on Thursday, 25th August and continues on Friday, 26th August. Groups C and D will take up a single day each, played on Saturday, 27th August and Sunday, 28th August respectively. Every game is currently scheduled to be played on stream other than the tiebreaker games between Clutch & Sea Algae, happening later tonight off-stream, and Bikini Beach & Gatekeepers, happening on Monday off-stream.
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