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Blizzard Entertainment is the company behind many immensely popular and classic games such as Starcraft, Diablo, Warcraft franchises. Meet the new masterpiece in the gaming world – the online multiplayer game Overwatch.
Overwatch came out on May 24, 2016, and since then set the bar high for many games of the FPS genre with its innovative approach to gameplay. The Overwatch closed beta that was accessible in late 2015 was marked with huge success – 9.7 million unique players tried the game. This is a record, not tell about the open beta which took place right before Overwatch’s release. Although considered to be the First Person Shooter, Overwatch has a lot of elements of MOBA which is visible whenever you view or play the match in this game. Overwatch has rich lore with a whole new universe created for an immersive gaming experience.
In Overwatch, two teams consisting of six players compete in close-quarters combat. Players gain control over the different heroes and play on multiple maps. Personal skill is always crucial but what is extremely needed to succeed in the game is the proper teamwork and intuitive cooperation.
The main goal of Overwatch seems to be clear, though for a better understanding of the game and Overwatch betting specifics we should tell more about the gameplay.
10$
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2016
5/5
$15
GSC
$25
7
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0.0005 BTC
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10+
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The gameplay of Overwatch is quite often compared with Team Fortress 2, because these two titles have many things in common. Those who are familiar with TF2 will notice them further.
As we have mentioned above, Overwatch involves 12 players in total that pick the heroes right before spawning in the match. Players can compete in 4 distinct game modes and each mode has its unique map roster. To be more specific, there are twelve maps currently available. We encourage you to read about the game modes in detail.
Gaming experience and general impression from the game might be different based on the mode selected. Let’s list them all below:
The first mode called assault involves two teams – attackers and defenders. The key target is to capture the predetermined points on the map and hold them as long as possible to increase the score of the team. When preparing this writing, we found many similarities between Assault mode in Overwatch and the Conquest in the Battlefield franchise. Of course, it is required to prevent the enemy team of claiming the points. Available maps for Assault right now are Temple of Anubis, Hanamura and Volskaya Industries.
The Escort mode is the second on our list. Players usually refer to this mode as the “payload”. Once again, teams are divided into defenders and attackers. The main target of the attacking team is to move the payload to the specified destination. Pushing the cart is possible when at least one player stays in the surrounding area of the payload. However, the process is much faster when more teammates try to complete the objective together, because if there are more players near the cart – the swifter will move to the delivery point. On the other hand, the defending team has to prevent the other team from reaching their goal by killing the enemy heroes or distracting them. The zone where the payload has to be delivered is unique at each map. These are the names of the Escort mode – Dorado, Route 66, and Watchpoint: Gibraltar.
Now it is important to mention the third mode – Hybrid. As the name suggests, the Hybrid represents the combination of objectives from the Assault and the Escort. The match starts with Assault settings, meaning that teams compete for points across the map. Once finished, the match does not end here – teams fulfill their roles for the Escort. The maps on which the Hybrid is played are Hollywood, King’s Row, and Numbani.
Perhaps more complicated for the Overwatch beginner to grasp is the Control mode, so let’s clarify it as one of the Overwatch betting tips. In Control, teams fight for objective areas in a BO3 (best-of-three) challenge. There are several rounds within one match. During each round, there is an objective area that has to capture and held till the expiration. Once the capturing progress rate reaches 100%, there will be a small amount of time needed for the controlling team to defend the point and eventually win the round. The other team has to use this short period to contest and recapture the point, preventing the opponents from winning. The Control is played on Nepal, Ilios, and Lijan Tower.
It is important to admit that in Overwatch esports competitions, teams ban maps by turn. This allows limiting the number of maps in the roster where the opposing teams are the most successful. However, considering the infancy of Overwatch as an esports discipline, the rules for banning the maps depend on the rules of the specific tournament.
Unlike many FPS games that just provide troop classes, in Overwatch, every hero has his own story which explains the nature of the abilities or the appearance of the hero. At the moment of writing this article, there are 22 heroes in total. This number for sure will increase with the release of game add-ons or DLCs. Every hero has three skills that can provide the advantage over the other player – two ordinary abilities and one strong ability named the Ultimate or Ulti. All 22 characters are divided into classes, which we are going to discuss briefly further. On a side note, pro players prefer one hero over the others, which is quite important to consider whenever you place an Overwatch bet.
Heroes that belong to the Offense class are the main damage dealers in Overwatch. They are best suited for eliminating important characters in the opposing team and perform other objectives. As you can understand, their set of abilities and particularly the Ultimate are directed at killing the enemy team quickly. Such heroes are very fast, so the player needs to have a good reaction to efficiently shoot off the Offense characters. The examples of this hero class are as follows: Genji, McCree, Pharah, Reaper, Soldier:76, Tracer, and Sombra.
Next in our lists goes the Support class. The chief duty of players who select this class is to assist their teammates throughout the whole match. Supports are supposed to be healing other heroes and also giving them useful buffs. Support players usually coordinate with Defensive heroes and Tanks, since healing allows them to be present longer on the map. Right now there are 5 Supports – Ana, Lucio, Mercy, Zenyatta, and Symmetra.
Tanks are also worth mentioning. These heroes have the biggest number of health points and this makes them especially hard to kill. Tanks usually distract other heroes, so they try to take all the damage dealt by the opponents, thus protecting the rest of the team. Tanks seriously lack mobility which makes them an easy target to the Offensive heroes, but they are strong enough to withstand all the incoming damage. Tanks in Overwatch are D.Va, Reinhardt, Roadhog, Zarya, and Winston.
Lastly, Overwatch has so-called Defensive heroes. These heroes have specialized abilities that prompt more control over the map, thus giving more space to the friendly heroes. These heroes place turrets, mines to hold the important points and help teammates while staying mostly behind them. Heroes with Defense playstyle include Junkrat, Hanzo, Bastion, Torbjorn, Widowmaker, and Mei.
In the vast majority of MOBAs and FPS games, it is not possible to change the heroes or characters in the middle of the ongoing match. This is not the case for Overwatch. Blizzard Entertainment has commented on this by saying that this can positively affect competitive play, especially in esports. For this reason, thinking over the picks for too long is not obligatory to succeed in Overwatch.
Additionally, every team including professional ones can pick as many duplicate heroes as it prefers. There are simply no barriers or rules to maintaining the balance between heroes, which provides players with new opportunities to develop unique strategies.
Nevertheless, such a policy in Overwatch is questionable from the esports point of view. This is why there are no strict rules for holding the tournament, as each event organizer is allowed to create its own. Such information should not be overlooked if you are interested in betting Overwatch.
Overall, publishing own in-house rules can be useful to limit the imbalanced hero compositions in the pro scene.
Blizzard’s game came out in several versions – for PC, PS4, and Xbox One. However, there are no tournaments or pro leagues for console players. That is why the main Overwatch esports platform is PC and not accidentally. In fact, the game has proved to be more comfortable to play on the PC, since the mouse and the keyboard give the player a higher degree of control than the PS4/Xbox One controller.
Another limitation, or should we say peculiarity, of the game is that PC and console players cannot play in the same match. In turn, this means that all future tournaments of this game on the console will be completely independent of those held for the PC.
The absence of the esports events on the console is not deadly for Overwatch, because the console players can easily watch the pro leagues on the PC.
Start Betting on Overwatch on GG.bet
Taking into account that the game was released not so long time ago, major esports betting websites are trying to examine Overwatch closely. They focus on assessing the future potential of the game to be attractive for online bettors. Since Overwatch is not talked much about as Dota 2 or CS: GO, not many sportsbooks offer the odds for Overwatch tournaments. This is going to change with the further popularization of the game.
Although it can be right now not so easy to find the Overwatch best-betting sites, there are still a few of them. Our number-one choice is Betway esports where you can find the best conditions for wagering on Overwatch pro competitions.
Overwatch players can randomly obtain in-game cosmetic items like skins, new voice samples, and so on. Unlike Dota 2, they are not transferrable and cannot be traded on the special marketplace. For this reason, there is no such thing as lounge betting for Overwatch. So what is left?
You will not see much difference between real money wagers in Overwatch and traditional sports. To start betting at the selected sportsbook, the player has to meet the minimum deposit requirement. The account for betting can be funded using different transfer methods, e.g. credit/debit cards, PayPal, wire transfers, Skrill, etc. Most of the time, Overwatch bookmakers will allow you to use the same payment methods to withdraw your prizes.
As for the wagering with virtual or play money, this is good for the overall practice or to shop around before registering at the specific sportsbook. Just to explain, the betting websites that offer play money wagering usually have their own currency which has the fixed exchange rates with the specific real currency.
We hope it is more or less clear where to bet on Overwatch, so let’s pass another important part of this writing.
All the regular esports bets are applicable for Overwatch as well. For this reason, at esports betting sites like Betway, the player is able to wager on the outcome of the specific match or the whole tournament. The odds for every Overwatch match depend on the amount of money the website users stake for each pro team. At the moment, the odds certainly lack accuracy compared to CS:GO, LoL, and other major esports titles.
The alternative way to bet on Overwatch is through fantasy betting. The main idea behind it is to select the particular pro players to form the fantasy team. Here the player’s success is determined by the real performance of the pro players during the Overwatch events. However, the pro scene for Overwatch is still forming, this is why the fantasy betting here is slightly scarce in comparison to other titles in esports.
The majority of Overwatch tournaments are free to join and everyone is eligible to participate. You should also take into consideration that established sports disciplines like CS: GO or Starcraft II have higher barriers to entry in the context of tournaments. Therefore, we might say that betting Overwatch is a pretty volatile choice.
Another thing to mention about Overwatch tournaments is the prize pool. The prize pools for this game are much lower than in other esports titles. Most of them do not exceed $1,000, with some rare exceptions. Since Overwatch is a new game, the tournaments frequently reward the winners with Battlenet discount coupons rather than giving out monetary prizes. The prize pool ceiling in the large Overwatch event was approximately $10,000. The pro team which got the first place took home the prize worth $5,000.
A big question is how the pro player is then motivated to participate since the potential gain from the tournament might not be worth the effort. In fact, the best teams in Overwatch are paid by various esports organizations. However, this is the natural stage of developing esports games. As soon as Overwatch gains more popularity and worldwide recognition, the prize pools will undoubtedly increase. This will draw the attention of sponsors and sports bookmakers to the game in the future.
In August 2016, Blizzard announced the creation of the Overwatch League and the Overwatch World Cup as the key tournament held at BlizzCon. The first Overwatch World Cup competition was an event of international scale, with 16 best national teams coming from different parts of the world. However, this World Cup is not a tournament like The International in Dota 2 with a prize pool of more than $20 mln. Blizzard officially described this tournament as the “community-driven exhibition of Overwatch players around the globe”.
This event has shown the world clearly that Blizzard is going to form the brand-new tournament system for Overwatch. This is highly anticipated by the online sportsbooks, as there will be more opportunities for placing the Overwatch bets. Right now the game is marked with the rising interest on Twitch. The Overwatch World Cup games were viewed by nearly 80,000 spectators.
Overwatch is a very promising game to bet on. As the pro scene is growing every day in terms of players, teams, and viewers, tracking the Overwatch competitive scene is a good decision. However, it is important to remember that the gap between high-skill teams and new lineups is pretty wide. Partially this is due to the openness of the tournaments, as there are few or literally no prerequisites needed to participate in the competitions.
To succeed at Overwatch gambling, it is required to learn all facets of the pro scene. Right now the best websites to discover more about Overwatch wagering are GosuGamers and Subreddit. The sites contain a lot of information about the professional teams and players with all the accurate rankings. Most of the sites related to Overwatch outline 4 teams to keep an eye on:
Therefore, familiarizing yourself with Overwatch betting is of paramount importance, because you definitely can make money on the emerging esports title. However, you should consider that the odds for Overwatch events vary among the online betting websites. Partially this is because there are not so many great sources of analytical information about the teams like in regular sports.
Finally, we would like to advise all bettors to play Overwatch to study the game from the inside. This is one of the best methods to get a solid understanding of all the niceties of Overwatch. Another solution is to regularly watch the streams of professional players on different broadcasting platforms, either Twitch or Youtube.
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In Overwatch, the most popular betting option is moneyline betting. The team that wins first in three rounds is the winner. The exact map score is another option. The player is asked to guess with which score on the maps the game will end (from 3:0 to 3:2). In OWL matches, teams are sure to play 4 maps. If the score is 2:2, an additional map is played. In this format, there can be a 4-0 score.
Total by maps is also a possibility. The player will have to guess how many rounds (maps) will be played in the match. As a rule, bookmakers offer to bet on a total of more or less 4.5 maps. With handicap betting, the principle is the same as in the odds on the usual sports competitions. For example, if you bet on the victory of the team with a handicap (-1,5), to win the bet, you need that the selected team wins with a score of 3-0 or 3:1.
Yes, bookmakers offer live betting on Overwatch games. Blizzard’s game combines MOBA and traditional shooters, so betting strategies that are appropriate for CS: GO, is not possible to use here. You need to take into account the features of the game to make successful bets. For most matches betting in in pre-match is quite scant, and if you are interested in something more than P1/P2, it is better to choose bets in live. Another argument in favor of live is the dynamics of the game. Overwatch is a very dynamic shooter in which everything changes quickly, so it is better to follow the game and respond to changes.
