The Overwatch League has announced its next tournament: Summer Showdown.
Set to begin June 13 and last four weeks, the tournament will include all 20 Overwatch League teams and feature a $275,000 total prize pool.
The tournament will be similar in nature to the well-received May Melee event. Reigning world champion San Francisco Shock defeated the surging Florida Mayhem 4-2 in the North American Finals. Meanwhile, in the Asia finals, the Shanghai Dragons defeated the Seoul Dynasty in a strong candidate for esports comeback of the year, pulling off a reverse sweep in the seven-game series to win 4-3 and capture the tournament crown.
OWL also announced that after the Summer Showdown, another tournament will be presented with a similar format. Following that, "balancing matches" will be played to ensure that each team has 21 matches played prior to playoffs. OWL confirmed what it previously announced: that playoffs will be played with no hero pool.
On top of this, OWL has once again changed the format to hero pools for the remainder of the season: One hero pool will be utilized for Weeks 19 and 20, and Week 21 and tournament weekend will operate with no hero pool. The yet-to-be-named tournament that will follow Summer Showdown will adopt the same format for hero pools. During the final two weeks of the regular season, when the balancing matches will be played, one hero pool will be used.
It was also revealed that Overwatch Contenders will use the same hero pool as OWL.