Prior to the second 2018 Contenders season, Blizzard added two additional divisions, Australia and South America, bringing the total to seven.

The number of two-way players allowed to compete on a given day for a team was increased from two to four.

The qualification to make regional playoffs was changed from a round-robin format to a point system, which includes four Contenders tournaments that will dictate the number of points a team earns based on their finishing place.

[4] After the first half of the 2020 season, Overwatch Contenders adjusted the structure of each region, with South Korea and Australia reverting back to the standard "league" format used in previous seasons, North America and Europe shifting to monthly tournaments, South America shifting to a hybrid format between the two, and China making no changes.

It will also shift to an open-registration format, with the top teams from the 2021 season being directly invited to the first event of the year without needing to qualify.

[7] On January 23, 2024, Blizzard announced that the Overwatch League and Contenders had officially folded; on the same day, they would announce a multi-year deal with ESL FACEIT Group and WDG Esports to create the Overwatch Champions Series (OWCS) to replace the OWL.

Each playoff match winner is determined by which team win three maps first until the Grand Finals, which is first-to-four.

Additionally, the top performers in each regional playoff has the chance to qualify for international events.

[12] Similarly, at the end of each year's second season, the top teams from the every region compete in The Gauntlet, which consists of group stages culminating in a double-elimination tournament.

[39] In August 2020, the OWL removed the limit on the number of players that a team could have on a two-way contract.