The PAX arena is a section of each PAX (Penny Arcade Expo) dedicated to competitive gaming. This year at PAX South 2017, PAX Arena will host the Overwatch Winter Premiere Live Finals. The Finals will run during the first two days of PAX South (January 27-28).

The Overwatch Winter Premiere is an open North American tournament that’s been running since December. It’s hosted by Next Generation Esports (NGE).

“The Winter Premiere was designed to highlight the best talent of Overwatch in North America,” said Andy Vander Woude, co-founder and CEO at NGE. “It’s only fitting to bring these all-star teams to the PAX Arena stage, where their efforts and talent can be celebrated by an even wider audience.”

Currently there are six teams remaining in their third week of round robin play. The six teams are CompLexity Gaming, Immortals, Kungarna, Luminosity, Renegades, and Team Liquid.

From there, a Final Four will journey to compete in the Live Finals in the PAX Arena. The teams are competing for a cut of the $100,000 prize pool. First prize awards $40,000 to the winning team.

“PAX Arena draws some of the most exciting esports events in our industry,” said Justin Dellario, senior manager at Twitch. “A keystone Overwatch event like the Winter Premiere Live Finals really demonstrates why PAX Arena will be a can’t-miss destination at PAX South.”

Over 500 teams in North America competed in an open qualifier event in December. The live PAX Arena finals will represent the last stage of the event.

“We’re very excited to be hosting the Winter Premiere finals at PAX Arena,” said Lance Fensterman, global senior VP at ReedPOP. “Having this live event at PAX South will give gamers the ultimate live Overwatch experience, both in-person and watching at home.”

If you’re not attending PAX South, you can watch the event via the Next Generation Esports channel, or the PAX Arena channel. If you want to catch up on previous matches, NGE has all the archives on their YouTube channel.


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Eric has been writing for over nine years with bylines at Dicebreaker, Pixelkin, Polygon, PC Gamer, Tabletop Gaming magazine, and more covering movies, TV shows, video games, tabletop games, and tech. He reviews and live streams D&D adventures every week on his YouTube channel. He also makes a mean tuna quesadilla.