Eight regions emerged victorious after three days of brutal brawling in the battle to come out on top in the Overwatch World Cup.
Despite being split up from their professional teams to compete with other players of their country of origin, the strongest well-renowned players made it through the group stages but not without some scratches to their pride. The surviving teams will now face the elimination stage at this week's BlizzCon.
Sixteen regions split into four groups, and the top two teams from each would advance to the bracket stage. In Group A, with Sweden, Spain, Brazil, and Canada, Sweden was the favorite to win. They were dominant on the first two days. Having Kevin "TviQ" Lindström from one of Europe's best teams, Rogue, was a huge boon for the Swedish squad as he was leaving a trail of bodies behind against teams like Canada and Brazil. On the final day however, Spain upset the group by taking the first spot from Sweden, leaving them in second place heading into elminations. Spain looked a little uncoordinated at first, but they had a powerful lineup with Sergei "Winghaven" Torras from REUNITED, Jonathan "harryhook" Tejedor Rua from EnVyUs as some of their core powerhouses.
Group B was expected to be close, with Russia, USA, and Germany in a brawl for the top two spots. Chile was expected to be behind the other three regions, but the big surprise was Germany. They looked solid on paper, but uncoordinated onstage. On the last day, Russia's George "ShaDowBurn" Guschcha faced off against USA's Brandon "Seagull" Larned in an epic showdown as both players have proven themselves as top Genji players, but ShaDowBurn chopped down the American lineup more than Seagull could do the same to the Russian team. Russia emerged victorious taking the first spot, with USA following them out of the group stages as No. 2.
South Korea versus Finland tells the entire story of Group C, being two of the strongest teams at the Overwatch World Cup on paper, but South Korea's dominance put themselves on a level entirely above Finland. South Korea's Gong "Miro" Jin Hyuk from Lunatic-Hai was one of the brightest players on the team with near perfect Winston play, and had a heavy hand in dismantling the rest of the group in conjunction with the rest of his team.
After a long weekend of games, Group D could only stand to make the day longer as they entered a three-way tiebreaker between China, France, and Thailand. To settle the score, these teams had to go through a grueling round-robin on Nepal until one team was 2-0, and another team went 1-1 which happened to be China and France respectively. This sent Thailand and Singapore home but with colorful personalities on camera, spectators will not likely forget them.
On Thursday, the Overwatch World Cup will resume at noon PT with all of the quarterfinal and both semifinal matches, featuring the top eight regions: Russia, France, Spain, Finland, South Korea, the United States, China, and Sweden.