The Game Haus has obtained an official 2020 Overwatch Contenders Seeding Tournament Player Handbook document which provides many details concerning the tournament, including the seeding of the 16 teams participating, what the tournament means for 2020 and the structure and schedule of the tournament as a whole.

[Update 11/11: Upon this article’s initial release, The Game Haus only had access to an older version of the player handbook. Now, we believe we have obtained the most recent edition which updates the schedule of the tournament (taking place in January, not December) and the patch it will be played on (TBD rather than 1.42). This has bee updated to reflect those changes.]

The Seeding

According to the Player Handbook document, these are the official seedings for the Contenders Seeding Tournament. The image below is a screenshot taken from the document itself.

Tournament Format & Schedule

The tournament is being played in a double-elimination style bracket with each match being first to three map wins. This tournament will be played on a patch that has not been confirmed yet and will feature a variety of different maps in the pool. According to the document, the tournament is scheduled to take place from January 11-26.

The tentative schedule for the tournament as well as screenshots taken to confirm the map pool and bracket format can be seen below.

Tournament Implications/Prizes

The stakes of the tournament determine where teams will be seeded in the new 2020 Contenders format. The document refers to these seedings as the “prizes” of the tournament. These can range from a first seed in the initial 2020 Contenders bracket, all the way down to relegation back to Open Division. Exact placements can be seen in the image below.

Contenders Changes in 2020

As a reminder, the format and schedule for Contenders is changing dramatically in 2020. To learn more about these changes, check out the official release here and refer to the image below to get a better sense of how the 2020 year will look for Overwatch’s semi-pro scene.

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