The world's first international 'Overwatch' champions have been crowned
Rogue claimed Overwatch's first-ever international championship after defeating Reunited in the ESL Atlantic Showdown grand finals Sunday.
The Atlantic Showdown featured dozens of teams from North America and Europe battling for their piece of the $100,000 prize pool. Not only was this the first international Overwatch LAN tournament, it was also the first Overwatch tournament with a six-figure prize pool.
After weeks of online qualifiers, four teams from each region competed in LAN group stages at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany, Saturday and Sunday. The top four teams that made it to the playoffs were North America's Fnatic and Team EnVyUs, and Europe's Rogue and Reunited.
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For most of the tournament, it was difficult to tell which teams were the favorites as rosters were constantly shuffling and a major patch changed the game's meta. EnVyUs and Reunited emerged as the two top teams of the tournament before the playoffs and Rogue wasn't really expected to make it all the way to the championships.
Rogue upset tournament-favorite EnVyUs, breaking the North Americans' 57-0 streak to earn a spot against Reunited in the grand finals. The part-French, part-Swedish squad of six took that victory and used it as fuel to take the first map in the best-of-five match.
The excitement did not let up as Reunited took the second map, although it didn't come easily as each round had a contested overtime, the first one lasting over two minutes.
After tying it up 1-1, Reunited couldn't hang on. Rogue took the next two games and won the Atlantic Showdown as the crowd cheered in Germany, taking the $40,000 first-place prize and the pride of being the first international Overwatch champions.
The next big Overwatch tournament, ELeague's Overwatch Open, is taking place through September and has an even larger $300,000 prize pool.
