The Overwatch League is beginning to wind down with the Countdown Cup: the fourth and final monthly tournament set to begin on July 30th. All 20 teams will look to make a last attempt to acquire league points to qualify for the playoffs and playing.
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Countdown Cup Schedule
The Countdown Cup will begin on July 30th when the Dallas Fuel takes on the Paris Eternal. This will commence three straight weeks of qualifier action with each team playing four matches. When the qualifiers end the play-ins will begin to determine the four teams qualifying for the playoffs. The play-ins will begin on August 15th at 5:00 AM EST in the East and 3:00 AM EST in the West.
Four days later on the 19th, the playoffs will begin with the first round of the winner’s bracket. The tournament will go on until the grand finals on the 21st where a winner will be crowned.
Countdown Cup Hero Bans
After a tournament without it, hero bans are back with another four heroes with significant playtime (over 10%) being banned from competition. The hero bans were decided in a peculiar way: a marbles race on the Plat Chat Youtube Channel.
The hero bans are:
- Tank: Sigma
- DPS: Ashe
- DPS: Echo
- Support: Lucio
The Countdown Cup hero bans failed to attack either D.va or Brigitte, the two most-played heroes of the Summer Showdown with pick rates of 69% and 53%. However, the fifth most played hero: Lucio was taken out of the rotation for the final tournament. Perhaps the most eye-popping ban was the elimination of Echo from the hero pool. Echo was the single most picked DPS hero and sixth picked hero overall this season. However, her pick rate fell to just over 13% in the Summer Showdown.
Countdown Cup Map Pool
A new set of maps are in the pool for this stage. All modes have three selected maps except for Control which is played twice throughout a five map series.
The map pool is:
- Control: Busan, Illios, Lijiang Tower, Nepal, Oasis
- Escort: Havana, Route 66, Rialto
- Hybrid: Blizzard World, King’s Row, Numbani
- Assault: Temple of Anubis, Hanamura, Volskaya Industries
All of the action begins on July 30th on the Overwatch League Youtube Channel.
