It’s been a crazy and epic year for Overwatch Contenders. While we wait on the third and final season of Contenders 2018, let’s talk about the improvement and what is to come in Overwatch Contenders 2019.
Contenders 2019 will now be much longer, as there will be 2 seasons. To ensure a much more complex and higher level competitive play, each Contenders series will be moving from 12 competing teams to eight in which North America Contenders will be split into two eight-team regions. Resulting in the total number of Overwatch Contenders regions to eight.
Based on the Overwatch League Academy teams accepted, various top-performing teams from Overwatch Contenders 2019 will be automatically be qualified for season 1 of the Contenders 2019. If this is not the case, all existing teams will still have the chance to re-qualify through Contenders trials.
Additionally, to encourage local development to Overwatch Contenders, soft region lock is introduced where each team can have no more than three non-resident players on their roster. Lastly, the prizing structure has been revamped to heavily reward each region’s top teams. The prize pool has yet to be revealed but it will be announced in the late February before season 1 starts in 2019.
To know more on Overwatch Contenders 2019, visit their blog post. Be sure to also stay up to date on the latest news by visiting their official website or follow their twitter.
Nabeel Shariff is IGN SEA's newest intern who is very passionate about video games and tech.
