Blog 1 - History of the League


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The Overwatch League was first announced in November of 2016. Blizzard Entertainment’s plan was to make its newly released Overwatch game into an e-sports with worldwide city-based associations. From London to Shanghai, 12 teams face each other at the Blizzard Arena, a stadium specifically designed for competitive gaming, in a new, one of a kind e-sport league. But for those not in the know, Overwatch can be a bit of a headache and tough to understand. So here is a brief explanation of Overwatch in general and a short overview of the League.


Overwatch is a team based, first person shooter released in May of 2016. It has no story or campaign that players can go through to learn about the worldbuilding is through external comics, animated shorts, short stories, and in-game lore tabs. Instead, the game play consists of two teams of six players who compete against each other over an objective. There are four different game modes that players play per game.

Image result for overwatch mapA King-of-the-Hill mode where a team must control an objective point for 100 seconds in a best of three series. The next game type is a Payload type where an attacking team must stand near a payload that moves along a track with checkpoints within a time limit. The defending team can stall the payload progress by standing near it or by eliminating the attacking team, so no forward progress can be made. The third game mode is Assault, where one team of attackers must secure two objective points, with the second point being closer to the defender’s spawn point to enable a chance for the defenders to take the objective back and halt attacker progress. The fourth and final game mode is Hybrid. It combines the Assault and Payload mechanics into one map. Attackers attempt to take control of an objective point. Once the point is captured, the Payload is unlocked and must be escorted to its final destination.

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The structure of the first season of the Overwatch League is split into five stages consisting of five weeks. Each week had three games being played from Thursday to Sunday and each team played for a total of 40 games. After each stage, there are stage playoffs that are determined by the map differential between the teams during that stage. After the season ends, teams compete in a season playoff, which is also determined by the total map differential.

This new season is structured a little different compared to previous season. The season will consist of four weeks. With eight new expansion teams, Blizzard Entertainment has reduced the number of games each team plays to 28 games total.

Next blog posts will cover the each of the teams and their players, backgrounds, and coaches.

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