After the matches ended this past weekend, the announced a May Tournament that will see all 20 teams play in tไwo tournament style brackets. One bracket will be the 13 teams in North America and the other will feature the 7 teams in the Asia region. This is a different step for the Overwatch League as they experiment with new things in 2020 following a season that has been significantly impacted by the state of everything at the moment.
The first three weekends of May will act as seeding for the tournament while the matches themselves will continue to count for the season standings overall. The 13 teams in North America will compete over the next three weekends to determine the seeding and the same will go for the seven teams in Asia. The tournament will be☂ single-elimination with the matches as first-to-three map wins with the finals being the first-to-four. On top of all that, Hero Pools will be suspended for the tournament, allowing the full range of heroes for teams to utilize.
The tournaments have a combined prize pool of $225,000 with first place from each region earning $40,000, second place will win $20,000, third and fourth win $5,000 and each tournament victory earns a team an additional $5,000 on top of placement prizing. To add even more incentive to the tournament, the champions will get three additional wins added to their season standings, second will get two additional wins and third and fourth place teams will get one. This is an interesting direction for the tournaments and is worth keeping a𝕴n eye out moving forward.
There has been discussion about how the Overwatch League should format their season going forward. The home/away format the league was banking on and built up to over the past two seasons came to a screeching halt during this global pandemic and the change of plans have allowed th💝e league to experiment with diffe🌞rent ways to approach it. If the May tournament proves successful, there is a possibility more months this season will work the same way and maybe beyond 2020.
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