no monkey business

The era of Overwatch esports pre-OWL is officially at its end sadly. It’s been a rough, but wonderful and memorable year+ of watching tournaments all the way back in beta where we will see some of the absolute greatest stars shine in their new Overwatch League rosters. This post is here for any Overwatch esports fan that’s following the scene into the upcoming Overwatch League. Cheers!

Overwatch League:

As many of you know, this is the absolute highest level of competitive overwatch any player could hope to play in. It’s debut will feature 12 rosters representing cities around the world (yes, mainly cities in the USA right now but there will be more if OWL S1 succeeds). Preseason showmatches will begin December 6th-9th. These matches won’t matter in terms of any seeding, but gives a general sight on how strong each one of these teams are. The official Overwatch League Inaugural season will start January 10 2018 - July 28 2018. There will be 3 matches a day from Wednesday-Saturday (depending on your timezone!) with 4 main stages (5 weeks long) that determine the seeding post-season. Check out ALL team names, rosters, players, news, and importantly the schedule (automatically in local time) at OverwatchLeague.com! There’s also plans of a documentary series and articles on the site (1st episode already out) as well as merchandise available on December 6th.

Resources:

If you find Overwatch esports news hard to find, these are super important websites I highly recommend you check out to stay up to date.

Over.gg- A wonderful user-friendly site that has all sorts of good resources (done by Enimga mainly, who used to be a pro himself). This is my #1 resource for ow esports as it has a good match tracker, data on all players and teams, wonderfully written articles by insiders and shows which pros are streaming at the moment!

Overwatch Liquipedia- Great site for keeping track of roster changes on the front page, as well as a match tracker and little wiki-esque pages on tons of players and teams. This is another good resource for learning some quick history of the pre-OWL scene.

Overbuff Meta Reports- Not necessarily overwatch esports news, but meta reports are a great way of seeing a tier list of heroes and good summaries/analysis on recent big tournaments, all written and kept track of by CaptainPlanet.

Overwatch Contenders-  This is an official site from Blizzard, but many might not be aware of Contenders. Recently season 1 was finished prior to the Overwatch World Cup. This is the (hopefully) main tournament that keeps the Tier 2 competitive scene going so new stars can get noticed by OWL teams. News of Blizzard’s changes to Contenders S2 is coming ‘soon’.

r/Competitive Overwatch- This is the main competitive overwatch subreddit, lots of news and roster stuff gets posted here as well, I know sometimes reddit can be an interesting place, but check it out once in awhile!

MUST-WATCH Matches before OWL:

These are matches that are absolutely staple to OW esports fans who’ve been following for awhile. If you catch yourself having spare time, definitely check these out as they feature some OWL names.

Rogue vs EnVyUs- Gamescom Atlantic Showdown 2016 (Semi Finals)

Rogue vs Misfits- Overwatch Open @ ELEAGUE 2016 (EU Finals)

Rogue vs Lunatic-Hai- APAC Grand Finals 2016

EnVyUs vs Kongdoo Uncia- APEX Season 1  (Semi Finals)

Meta Athena vs Kongdoo Panthera- APEX Season 2 (Quarter Finals)

Runaway vs LW Blue- APEX Season 2 (Semi Finals)

Runaway vs Lunatic-Hai- APEX Season 2 Grand Finals (Part 1 is linked with KR commentary, can’t find the ENG one on YT but for people okay with twitch vods here)

Lunatic-Hai vs Kongdoo Panthera- APEX Season 3 Grand Finals