Overwatch World Cup group stage revealed: UK to face Germany, Israel and Belgium this summer

Representatives who will assemble each of the 32 teams also decided following fan vote.

Blizzard has revealed the groups for this year's Overwatch World Cup following a player vote to decide representatives for each country that will aid in the selection of the pro teams that will take part in the tournament.

The group stage will take place this summer in China, Australia, Poland and the United States, with eight groups battling it out. The United Kingdom was placed in Group H with Germany, Israel and Belgium.

Each group of four will play a round robin series of matches deciding the top two teams that will move on the play-offs where the winners and runners-up from Group A will face-off with Group B and so on.

The top two teams from each of the four live events will move on to the Overwatch World Cup finals, to be held in November at BlizzCon 2017.

Blizzard has yet to announce the exact dates for each of these events.

The teams representing each nation will be selected by three experts who got their roles following a fan vote conducted by Blizzard. The UK team will be selected by Stylosa, Seb 'Numlocked' Barton and Harrison 'Kruise' Pond.

Sixteen rather than 32 players competed in last year's Overwatch World Cup, which was one by South Korea, who bested teams representing Russia, Sweden and Finland in the finals last November.

The UK is among the debuting teams competing at this year's tournament.

Below is the complete list of groups, including where they will compete during this summer's live events. The numbers correspond to their rank, which was decided by a skill score based on the average skill rating of the best players from each country. This in turn dictated each nation's seeding.

Group A (Shanghai, China)