SINGAPORE - A team from Singapore has qualified for the finals of the Overwatch World Cup, an international tournament with national squads from over 50 countries taking part.

Singapore will be one of 16 countries competing for the world champion's crown at the offline finals, which will be held at the video game convention BlizzCon in the United States in November.

The cup is a series of international exhibition matches organised by the game's publishers, Blizzard Entertainment. While it does not have a prize pool, all teams that qualify will receive an undisclosed appearance fee and a trip to Anaheim for the finals.

Overwatch is a six-versus-six first-person shooter game which was launched in May this year. It is played by over 15 million people worldwide, making it one of the fastest-growing video games right now.

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The Singapore team trounced Malaysia and the Philippines 2-0 each to qualify.

The team comprises: Marcus "Revenant" Tan Sin Yik, 24; Ong "RebornZ" Wei Qing, 20; Joel "Doubted" Tan, 18; Kenneth "Colbat" Ho, 25; Han "Dest" Zhong Wei, 26 and Toh "Pamyu" Koon Kit, 18. The team is managed by Afiz "Sodafiz" M. Noor.

The national squad is made up of players from different competitive teams, as four of the players were voted into the team by the local community, and two more were picked by the captain, Dest.

Despite their strong performance, the team headed into the qualifiers feeling less than confident, as they did not have much time to train together.

"We had two tournaments the weekend before we played our matches. This left us with only two nights to train together," said Revenant. "I didn't think we'd qualify for Blizzcon to be honest, because of how hectic the schedule was."

His teammate RebornZ added: "I had little confidence going in, as Overwatch is a team game, and we had little synergy."

Even during the matches, some of the players were worried as they were playing roles that they were not used to, or did not have much competitive experience.

Team captain Dest said: "I was worried about my positioning, and their very different play styles. I definitely got caught out a lot more than I should have."

Still, they managed to close out convincing victories against fellow APAC countries to come out top, alongside Taiwan and Thailand.

They also plan to ramp up their preparations for BlizzCon. They said: "From now until the finals in November, we will be training once a week, so keep an eye out for us!"

lting@sph.com.sg