In the heart of Las Vegas, Nevada, eight world-class North American teams have been invited to Major League Gaming's first invitational for Overwatch on Dec 16-18. Fnatic, FaZe Clan, compLexity Gaming, NRG Esports, Team EnVyUs, Team Liquid, Rise Nation and Cloud9 will be fighting over a prize pool of $100,000 and the title of best Overwatch team in a region that is becoming very strong in the global field.
The teams are split into two groups of four and each group will play a double elimination bracket on the first two days. The top two teams will advance and be seeded into a single elimination playoff round. Each match in the group stage is a best-of-three format with the playoffs being best-of-five.
The tournament promises to be interesting, as many of these teams will be competing here soon after the Overwatch NGE Winter Premiere Open Play, and some teams will be looking for payback. For those less familiar with the teams but who were enthralled by BlizzCon's Overwatch World Cup in early Nov., they'll be able to see a lot of star players return but with their original team lineups.
In Group A will be Team EnVyUs, Fnatic, Rise Nation and compLexity Gaming. The most anticipated team to watch in this group is Team EnVyUs with one of the sharpest hitscan players in Timo "Taimou" Kettunen, as he and the rest his team are fresh off a win in South Korea with a first place finish in Overwatch Apex Season 1.
Group B will feature the rest with Cloud9, FaZe Clan, Team Liquid and NRG Esports. NRG Esports is known as a strong team but ever since they parted ways with Daniel "GODS" Graeser and Mark "Pookz" Rendon after BlizzCon, things haven't really been the same for them. They welcomed Matthew "clockwork" Dias and Seb "numlocked" Barton, but saw a quick exit from OGN APEX in Korea and a faster exit in the Overwatch Winter Premiere open qualifiers. MLG Vegas is another chance to reclaim some of their former glory before 2016 comes to a close. Another player that fans new and old alike will be happy to see is George "ShaDowBurn" Gushcha competing with FaZe Clan, as the Russian player took the Overwatch Cup by storm with his fantastic Genji play.
MLG Vegas will not be featuring a map drafting system like APEX or DreamHack did, but rather there is a set pool of maps that will be used throughout the tournament in an attempt to ensure map diversity. The action starts on Friday Dec 16 at 3:00 PM PDT/ 6:00 PM EST with Fnatic and Rise Nation being the first teams to duke it out in MLG Vegas.