Blizzard is changing the Overwatch World Cup for 2017 in a big way.
Last year’s event saw some three million people cast their votes in order to help establish national rosters, with more than 50 countries represented in the final tournament.
Unsurprisingly, South Korea came out on top, with Winston main Miro walking away with the tournament’s MVP award.
In 2017, Blizzard appears to have taken a little more control over the team recruitment process. It will begin this month, with Blizzard tracking the top 100 players across each country.
The studio hopes this will open the door for more countries to participate, as the voting system restricted the number of players from each country in last year’s event.
Once we tick over into April, Blizzard will take the average skill rating of the top 100 players in each country to determine the top 32 countries by skill in the world.
With those teams determined, the live qualifiers will begin, with groups of eight established to battle it out for a spot at BlizzCon 2017.
The voting system will return at this stage, with players voting for three representatives. Blizzard will nominate the rest of the team based on expertise. Rosters can be adjusted between events.
Four live group stage events will take place in North America, Europe and Asia. These groups will each have eight teams, with two from each group playing through towards BlizzCon 2017.
You can influence your country’s skill rating and improve its chances by grinding your way into the top 100. You never know: you could be a pro Overwatch player, but you might not even know it!
Australia is currently ranked 13th in the world, meaning at this stage it’s comfortably within the the live qualifiers stage.
It’s well behind South Korea, China and the USA, however, each with an average skill rating of above 4500. You can check out the full country ranking here.