2020 has been a crazy year for the Overwatch League (OWL) due to the coronavirus, and believe it or not, it’s almost halfway over. Now, the OWL has announced new schedules for May along with new single-elimination regional May Madness tournaments with cash prizes for OWL teams.
May Madness
During the first three weeks of May, every OWL team will play qualifying matches to determine seeding for two regional tournaments. One tournament will be held in North America from May 22-24. The second will take place in Asia from May 23-24.
Surprise, surprise, it's almost tournament time! Take a look at the format for the #OWL2020 May Tournament! pic.twitter.com/V7gmr1UM9z
— Overwatch League (@overwatchleague) April 27, 2020
The North America tournament will have three qualifying matches for 13 OWL teams. The Asia tournament will have four qualifying matches for 7 OWL teams. Here are the teams for each region:
North America
- Atlanta Reign
- Boston Uprising
- Dallas Fuel
- Florida Mayhem
- Houston Outlaws
- Los Angeles Gladiators
- Los Angeles Valiant
- Paris Eternal
- Philadelphia Fusion
- San Francisco Shock
- Toronto Defiant
- Vancouver Titans
- Washington Justice
Asia
- Chengdu Hunters
- Guangzhou Charge
- Hangzhou Spark
- London Spitfire
- New York Excelsior
- Shanghai Dragons
- Seoul Dynasty
Both tournaments have a combined $225,000 USD prize pool that OWL teams can win with the following tiers:
- Tournament champions—$40,000
- Second place teams—$20,000
- Third and fourth place teams—$5,000
- Each tournament win per team—$5,000 (in addition to placement prizing)
Here are the North American tournament brackets:
And, here’s the Asia tournament bracket:
How this impacts the regular season
The qualifying matches for each team will count towards the 2020 OWL season standings. Tournament matches, however, will not. Teams can also earn bonus wins by how well they do in their tournament. The tournament winners will get three wins, the second-place teams will get two, and the third and fourth placers will get one.
The May Madness tournaments should add some excitement to the 2020 OWL season. It also gives weaker teams a shot to climb back up in the standings. This should give their fans something to be excited about. Make sure to stay tuned for more updates on the tournament and other Overwatch related news!
