Overwatch World Cup 2019 Betting Insights
The Overwatch World Cup 2019 is just around the corner and national teams are high on the meme train to BlizzCon 2019. Every single national twitter profile is taking stabs at reigning champion South Korea or the OWC organizers in what seems to be an all-out meme festival. Meanwhile, the National Committees have announced the rosters and eligible players of all 47 contestants at this year’s World Cup.
Overwatch World Cup Teams
Before we dive into the analysis, we have to consider the apparent lack of commitment by Blizzard Entertainment and the Overwatch World Cup organizers regarding the funding of the eligible Overwatch World Cup teams. In fact, two of the 42 eligible teams selected through the Overwatch World Cup 2019 voting have already stepped down from the tournament citing the financial difficulty and lack of support by the organizers.
Team Argentina and Egypt gave statements earlier this month that they are dropping out of the tournament. Team Romania also gave a statement citing similar reasons but has since removed the statement leaving the faith of the Romanians in the Overwatch World Cup unknown.
Finally, Team Singapore went down the crowdfunding path and started a GoGetFunding page to bring their team to California this year.
There is some hope, however, as Blizzard announced the SEA Invitational tournament in Hong Kong with a grand prize of… you guessed it: Airfare and accommodation for one team at the Overwatch World Cup 2019.
Eight Overwatch World Cup teams are eligible for the prize at this tournament: Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. The teams will compete in a single-elimination tournament with the winner taking home the only prize. The rest will have to manage.
Overwatch World Ranks
This year there were several changes to the tournament structure (check out our Best Overwatch tournaments section) and the Overwatch World ranks. Teams were awarded points based on their previous year’s performance in a weighted point-ranking system.
The Top10 teams based on this system will receive full full coverage for round-trip airfares, ground transportation, and double-occupancy hotel accommodations by Blizzard for the whole event.
The 5 top teams out of the ten will also receive a direct BYE into the Overwatch World Cup.
The remaining five will have go through the Preliminary tournament along with the other 40ish teams for the remaining 5 slots.
Overwatch World Cup Rosters Breakdown
The Top10 Overwatch teams we just mentioned are also first up in our OW Roster Breakdown section. They are:
1. South Korea
2. Canada
3. China
4. France
5. United States
6. United Kingdom
7. Australia
8. Sweden
9. Russia
10. Finland
Let’s take a look at the five teams with direct slot into the World Cup, starting with South Korea.
The South Korean National team is the current and tri-peat reigning champion at the Overwatch World Cup having won each and every one to date. This year they feature another monster squad made up of seven Overwatch League player three of which are playing in the OWL Grand Final next week. When it comes to odds and bets, you will not need our betting guide to figure out this is your top and safest bet in either outright or accumulator bets.
Focus on the most favourite teams in this Overwatch World Cup 2019
This iteration of the South Korea dream team is most likely to play in the final and and is the absolute favorite of winning the whole event.
Next up is Team USA as the closest contender for the Overwatch throne. The team features three San Francisco Shock players: Jay “sinatraa” Won, Matthew “super” DeLisi and Grant “moth” Espe. They are also reinforced by LA Valiant’s Indy “SPACE” Halpern and Kyle “KSF” Frandanisa to form a formidable OWL counterpart to the Korean squad.
Together with South Korea, these two teams are the one two overall favorites at the whole event and likely to meet in each other deep into the event.
The dark horse in this S-tier selection of teams is Team China. Their strength comes from the heavy squad synergy rising from the fact that the national team is pretty much a copy-paste of the Chengu Hunters. Coach Xingrui “RUI” Wang selected his entire Hunters squad to represent China after last year’s near miss at the World Cup finals.
Finally, teams Canada and France are the last two with direct seeding into the main event. Both of these teams feature formidable squads packed with OWL professionals but they don’t quote stack up to the likes of USA, Korea and China. The remaining five teams with full coverage are all decent in some way but lack that oomph of the top three we singled out. Finland and United Kingdom are worthy of singling out as the same tier level as Canada and France.
With potentially seven known teams (theoretically) for the main event, let us take a look at noteworthy teams in the Preliminaries that would take the final three slots.
Brazil comes first to mind when thinking about a likely contender for a slot in the main event. Most of the squad is made up of the South America Contenders winner Lowkey Esports including coach Yuri “Insanityz” Ribeiro. The synergy between the squad cannot be understated and they are one of the top picks for coming out of the Preliminaries.
Denmark comes to mind 2nd when analyzing player potential and high skill in the roster. Mads “fischer” Jehg and Anders Henningsen from HSL Esports are reinforced by Kellex and Shax straight out of OWL with Victor “Scaler” Godsk rounding out the roster. Denmark similarly to Brazil is a blend of Contenders champions and OWL professionals who seek to make this trip to the Overwatch World Cup glorious.
New Zealand is the final squad worthy of mention in our Rosters Breakdown. A blend of players from the finalists in Australian Contenders teams Order and Mindfreak are reinforced by Boston Uprising’s Kelsey “Colourhex” Birse to create a decent team worthy of a spot at the main event.
Let us recap
• The squads of South Korea, USA and China are most likely to play in the final/semifinal of the Overwatch World Cup.
• Finland, United Kingdom, Brazil, Denmark and New Zealand are most likely teams to make it to the main event
The Overwatch World Cup 2019 schedule is yet to be disclosed regarding the Preliminaries. As the tournament is over a month away betting providers are yet to give us quotas and odds on the upcoming matches. Nevertheless, check our Top Esports Betting Sites and check back regularly with them in order to catch the early esports betting bonus offers available before the event kicks off.
The Overwatch World Cup 2019 kicks off November 1st at the Anaheim Convention Center during BlizzCon. You can catch all the action with Blizzards newest Overwatch World Cup Viewer app.