The first official news for the Overwatch League 2023 season has arrived!
Sean Miller and Soe Gschwind took to YouTube to talk about the changes in the upcoming season of the Overwatch League.
Overwatch League 2023
Overwatch League 2023 begins on April 27th! Now straight to the point. This season’s structure is a bit confusing.
In the East, there will be Contenders teams taking on Overwatch League teams in the first half of each section this season (to fill time). In the West, there is an abundance of Overwatch League teams meaning they can fill the schedule on their own without any Contenders teams competing against them.
During the qualifiers, which is the Regular Season, Overwatch League teams will compete in normal competitive play to get seeded for the Knockouts. Then, through the Knockouts, teams will attempt to qualify for the Midseason Madness tournament, or Play-Ins depending on which half of the season it is. So, rather than four Stages distributing even points for successful teams, we have… this.
The changes to the season format make Season 6 of the Overwatch League a less professional environment with the inclusion of Contenders teams in the East, but when it is all broken down, the international events are still going to look like a very competitive and professional section of the league.
Live Events
Live events aren’t completely back, but there will be some! Some, of course, meaning two. Just as has been with the last few seasons, only the international events (Midseason Madness and Playoffs/Grand Finals) will be held as live events. It is a bummer that we can’t go out and support our favorite teams every week, but its the teams that did this in the end. Last year there was lots of complaint about West teams having to travel to Hawaii before tournaments making them lose practice time and be tired.
April 27th
Overwatch League Opening Day will be two different forms of competition. In the West, the season will start as usual with Regular Season matches. In the East, the Opens will begin with Contenders teams either competing against each other, or against each other and Overwatch League teams. That section wasn’t clarified. There will likely be another community update before the start of the seasons, so there should be more clarification to come.
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