By entering and participating in the Competition, each Student-athlete, as defined below, and any associated Roster coaches/managers/trainers/etc., unconditionally accept and agree to comply with and abide by these Official Rules and Regulations (the "Competition Rules"). All decisions regarding the interpretation of these Competition Rules lie solely with the Administrator, the decisions of which are final and binding in all respects. In addition, all Student-athletes and any associated Roster coaches/managers/trainers/etc. must adhere to the Esports Code of Conduct (the “Code of Conduct”).

Prior to the start of the Competition, all Student-athletes must have a good standing Battle.net Account. This same account must be used for the full duration of the Competition. League Officials reserve the right to modify Battle.net usernames if they do not abide by the rules of the Competition.

Each Player must set their Career Profile Visibility setting to “Public”. This setting is located in the Social menu in the Privacy tab.

All Battle.net IDs must be in format Battlenet ID#Tagline. (Example: PlayerName#PCE). League Officials reserve the right to modify Battle.net IDs if they do not abide by the rules of the Competition. Battle.net IDs must be in-line with the standards set out in the Code of Conduct. A Player will be notified by League Officials if their name must be changed and will be permitted to change to an acceptable name.

Players may not change their account username at any time throughout the Competition, unless instructed to by League Officials. The account username the Player used to register is to be used for the entirety of the Competition. League Officials will issue a Warning to any Player that has changed their account username during the Competition and will ask the Player to revert the change. Further sanctions will follow for failure to revert the change/repeating this infraction.

All Players in the Competition must link their Battle.net ID to their LeagueSpot Account. This can be done by going to Profile Settings (top right of the main page, where you see the Player’s name). At the bottom of the Profile Settings select +Add New Handle. In the dropdown menu, select Overwatch Account, add your Handle, and then Save.

Rosters must be made up of the minimum required number of Players to be eligible. This is game dependent. An Overwatch Roster must have at least Five Players on the Roster at all times. A Roster of Four or fewer Players is not considered eligible to play in Matches.

For Premier Division, Rosters must be made up of the minimum required number of Players to be eligible plus one substitute player. In this case, an Overwatch Roster must have at least Six Players on the Roster at all times.

Teams will only be eligible for Premier if their Team’s rank average is at or above Diamond. The recommended rank for players in the Ranked Divisions is Platinum and below. The rank provided during registration for each Player should be their current ranks. If a season is just beginning, the previous season's rank should be reported.

For Premier and Ranked, Rosters will be seeded based on the average In-Game rank of their top Five players at the time of registration. The Advisory Committee has the authority to manually adjust regional conferences and divisions, if necessary, with the intent of providing a more equitable distribution of Rosters between them.

For the Ranked Division, the number of divisions will be based directly on the number of Rosters registered. Rosters will be placed in a particular Ranked Division based on their skill level (in-game rank). Ranked Divisions will consist of up to sixteen Rosters each.

For the UREC Division, Rosters will compete against other Rosters within the same Region (East or West) that have the same or similar seasonal record (win/loss).

Teams must ensure that the proper Banned Heroes are disabled in “Game Settings” before the start of a Game. In custom game settings, modes will have either a 6v6 label or no label. Please use the no label variants as those are the intended 5v5 game modes for Overwatch gameplay.

The winner of a coin flip will pick the first Map and host the first Game. You can flip a coin inside the match chat feature on the Competition Website by typing “!coinflip”. During the Postseason, the higher seeded Roster will pick the first Map and host the first Game. The losing Roster of any preceding Game may pick the Map and host (if necessary) subsequent Games. The Roster that does not pick the Map will pick sides. The higher seeded Roster selects the first map and hosts the first Game of the match.

The hosting team is expected to ensure all lobby settings are accurate as modes and maps are changed over the course of match progression.

No Map of a certain type may be played twice in a Match before each map of that type has been played at least once in the Match.

The Game Mode Rotation is as follows:

In the event of a series being tied after all maps are played, Control maps will be continuously played until one team has won enough maps to satisfy the series requirements for a victory. (i.e. If the map score is 2-2 after playing 5 maps in a Best of 5 series, Control maps will be played until one team has won 3 total maps).

In the event of a Draw on a map, the winning roster from the previous map will pick a side and the losing team will pick the next map.

Hero Bans will occur for each Game in a series, after the Map Selection process. Each Roster will have one Hero Ban per Game in a Match.

Both teams should confirm they are ready for hero bans before proceeding as player substitutions may not occur once after hero bans start is selected.

In the first Game of a Match, the Roster that loses the coin flip will ban a Hero first (i.e. the Roster that does not select the Map for Game 1). In proceeding Games, the team who lost the previous Game will ban a Hero first. In the event of a tie, the Roster to last lose a Game will ban a Hero first.

The Hero Pool will consist of every Hero in competitive play available unless stated otherwise by League Officials.

Violating the Heroes banned for a specific Game, if selected, will result in an immediate game loss if the Hero is selected and enters the field of play. The field of play is defined by the Hero leaving the spawn doors or the Hero using abilities in spawn that affect gameplay or give an advantage (example: information gathering, movement abilities, etc).

Players may switch between roles within a Map during a side switch or between control point Maps so long as the 1-2-2 limit is still met.

Rosters may freely substitute Players between Games in a Match, but the opposing Roster must be allowed at least five minutes between notification of the substitution and the start of the next Game. Players may not be substituted after the Hero Ban process has started nor during an ongoing Game. All substituted Players must have been on a Roster before the start of the Match to be considered eligible.

All Matches may be played on either of the listed equipment. Crossplay is allowed.

Players may use Mouse and Keyboard or Controllers.

Teams must follow section 4. Match Setup and Procedures in the league’s Competition Rulebook as they prepare to join their match.

The Home Roster is responsible for inviting the Away Roster’s Captain to the lobby and for ensuring that all settings are correct. Once all ten participating Players have joined the lobby the game may be started. Both Rosters are responsible for ensuring that all settings are correct.

Any Game started with the wrong settings may be remade. If either Roster invites a Player/Spectator to a Game that is not a member of their Roster or School administrative staff member (i.e. coach, broadcaster) they may forfeit that Game, at the discretion of League Officials.

During the first 30 seconds of a Game and before any Player has been eliminated, Rosters may agree to restart and/or switch the Server (if applicable).

Rosters may agree to restart and/or switch the Server (if applicable) if connectivity issues significantly hinder gameplay.

Rosters must restart and/or switch the Server if the Game is created with ineligible characters, weapons, map, items, settings.. Etc.