Almost as popular as the main Overwatch League, the Contenders League is full of OWL-hopefuls and more importantly, a ton of incredibly talented and skilled players and some really epic competitions. Now, after last year, Contenders has made some pretty big changes to their tournament format.

The biggest one is the Gauntlet. After two entire seasons of epic games, the best of the best in the Contenders world are going to participate in the Gauntlet – in this showcase, the winners of the previous few competitions are going to be up against each other.

Blizzard has been keeping quiet about the details of the final competition to draw up suspense, and now they’ve finally revealed the details of the big event. This October – between Wednesday the 9^th and Sunday the 13^th, players from all over the world will gather in Seoul, South Korea. In the Giga Arena, they’ll compete for the ultimate prize: their share of the $250.000 prize pool. That’s double what the two Showdowns prior had – the Atlantic and Pacific Showdown (won by Korea and North America, respectively) featured a $125.000 prize pool each.

The teams invited are the ones who did well in the other, regional competitions. Ten teams in total will be invited. Eight of the ten teams will be split into groups A and B, where they will compete in a double-elim game. This means that each team will end up with a final ranking – the top three of the four teams of each group will advance.

Now, the top team of North America and Korea receive a direct pass to the Gauntlet finals, and along, with the six teams that made it through the play-offs, they will compete in the big finals. The matches in the entire competition stage will be a ‘first-to-3’ maps game, with only the finals of both the groups stage and the overall competition being a ‘first-to-4’ instead.

The entirety of the tournament will be played with a 2-2-2 rule lock – additionally, all OWL teams have been invited to send representatives to the Gauntlet, in order to interact with the players. They will be available for interviews and have direct access to the Contenders team for this purpose.

Of course, this benefits them as well – OWL teams recruit from successful Contenders teams, after all, making the Gauntlet the perfect opportunity to show off and potentially be drafted for the 2020 OWL season.

If you are interested in watching the Gauntlet, you can do so in three different languages – English, Korean and Mandarin. Official broadcasters and a few further details still haven’t been revealed yet – of course, they will be in time for the big launch this October. Stay tuned for more details on the matter. You can enjoy the matches on the official respective Twitch Overwatch Contenders channels for each of the three languages/regions. Be sure to tune in for the Grand finals at least – they will determine the best Contenders team of the entire world!