Overwatch World Cup: Who's competing and how to watch

Some of the world's best players are heading to the United States for the Overwatch World Cup.

Around 40 million people play the game worldwide, and the UK is one of the top ten teams to be heading to the live event.

It's being held at Blizzcon at the Anaheim Convention Center in California - but will be streamed online for those who can't attend.

The Overwatch World Cup started in 2016, and for the last three years South Korea have dominated the competition.

Can the 7Lions, Team UK's Overwatch representatives make it to the finals?

Who are the 7Lions?

Team UK is represented by seven elite players who play in different roles - Support, Damage and Tank.

Support heal the team and can boost their abilities, while Damage are the players who try to take down the other team and Tank are the ones who protect their team from taking damage.

On the 7Lions, Boombox, Kruise and FunnyAstro play Support. KSP and KYB lead the charge in Damage, and keeping the team safe are Fusions and Smex as Tanks.

The team made it all the way to the semi-finals last year, and in a shock win took out Team USA , who were the favourites.

How does the Overwatch World Cup work?

The Overwatch World Cup works in a similar way to the Overwatch League which took place last month.

The preliminaries will take place on 31 October, the Group Stage on 1 November, and the Medal Round on 2 November.

First in the Group Stage, the ten teams are split into two groups of five to battle it out.

The top six teams from these matches will then go through to the Medal Round.

The top two teams of the Medal Round automatically bag themselves a semi-final place.

The other four will then fight it out to see which remaining teams will join the others in the semis.

The top three teams all receive medals and prize money.

Why have so many countries dropped out?

Blizzard made the controversial decision this year to only fund travel for the top ten teams competing.

This means that the other 37 countries have had to fund their own way there - which can cost thousands of pounds.

This has proved to be too much for many teams, with 11 countries pulling out before the competition has even started.