USA World Cup Team

I've seen a lot of comments on Reddit and here talking about how Team USA is "guaranteed to get absolutely demolished" and "they have no chance of getting out of groups."

I don't really understand this. Does everyone have a preconceived notion that just because they're "NA", team USA (and team Canada as well) are automatically going to perform poorly? Both nations have really, really strong rosters, so I don't know why everyone is counting them out immediately. Last year, USA was the only team that came closest (maybe along with Sweden) to taking a map off Korea, and they had ster playing. This year we have the DPS duo of Jake and Sinatraa, the tank and support duo from faze clan, a fantastic Dva in Coolmatt, and one of the best Lucio/shotcallers in the world. I say we look pretty stacked.

Members of the ow community from other countries have an incredible amount of national pride and will root for their countries no matter what roster they put out. But for anything that comes out of the US, it's met with immediate pessimism. Have some faith people, root for USA! Don't count em out just yet

I'm rooting for Canada, no surprise there, but I think Taiwan is currently the favourite to come out on top of their group. They're a full team and have demonstrated themselves to be beast.

According to them their scrims vs Tier 2 Korean teams resulted in victories and the ones against the top teams resulted in losses. Of course scrims have to be taken with a giant grain of salt but those results sound pretty much like what Rogue and Envy were able to achieve.

I'm totally biased towards our two NA teams and I'll root for both to win, but it sounds like they have their work cut out for them both when facing the eastern teams specially.

I think they can make it, just saying it's predicted to be an uphill battle.

Team USA is guaranteed to get absolutely demolished by Taiwan

I usually agree with you Penda, but I'm going to have to go completely against you here. I see it being a 2-2, or maybe even a 3-1 in USA's favor. Just because they are an established team doesn't mean they are guaranteed to win. They're playing very far away from home, there's a lot of pressure on them to perform up to expectations that the OW community has suddenly dropped on Flash wolves.
Everyone thought Australia would take their group easily because they were a top performing, full roster, but Sweden came in and dispelled that notion. It's entirely possible that USA's roster clicks so well (which I think it will), and it's star quality will be enough to beat Taiwan.

All this said though, I'd rather USA lose to Taiwan, take 2nd in the group, defeat most likely U.K. in the playoffs, and NOT have to face SK in the quarterfinals two years in a row. Because that would suck

Pixelfish [#4]

I usually agree with you Penda, but I'm going to have to go completely against you here. I see it being a 2-2, or maybe even a 3-1 in USA's favor. Just because they are an established team doesn't mean they are guaranteed to win. They're playing very far away from home, there's a lot of pressure on them to perform up to expectations that the OW community has suddenly dropped on Flash wolves.
Everyone thought Australia would take their group easily because they were a top performing, full roster, but Sweden came in and dispelled that notion. It's entirely possible that USA's roster clicks so well (which I think it will), and it's star quality will be enough to beat Taiwan.

All this said though, I'd rather USA lose to Taiwan, take 2nd in the group, defeat most likely U.K. in the playoffs, and NOT have to face SK in the quarterfinals two years in a row. Because that would suck

The problem with your assertion is how massive the skillgap is between a) USA and Sweden and b) Taiwan and Australia

Sweden features potentially the best player in the world and a lot of synergy as four of the members played on the same team, while Australia was demolished by Taiwan in the finals of the Pacific Championship

Pixelfish [#4]

I usually agree with you Penda, but I'm going to have to go completely against you here. I see it being a 2-2, or maybe even a 3-1 in USA's favor. Just because they are an established team doesn't mean they are guaranteed to win. They're playing very far away from home, there's a lot of pressure on them to perform up to expectations that the OW community has suddenly dropped on Flash wolves.
Everyone thought Australia would take their group easily because they were a top performing, full roster, but Sweden came in and dispelled that notion. It's entirely possible that USA's roster clicks so well (which I think it will), and it's star quality will be enough to beat Taiwan.

All this said though, I'd rather USA lose to Taiwan, take 2nd in the group, defeat most likely U.K. in the playoffs, and NOT have to face SK in the quarterfinals two years in a row. Because that would suck

Note that BLANK got absolutely destroyed by these guys for about 7 weeks? They went 1-8 including the finals winning a total of 5 maps across those 9 games.

I'd argue that Taiwan is very different from Australia so I think I have to go 3-1 for Taiwan here. I'm rooting for USA regardless of later seeding so I'd be happy to see them win, I'm not convinced their star power will overcome this opponent.

Hope it will be an epic game though.

they stand no chance against team new zealand

Clickbait [#7]

they stand no chance against team new zealand

EZ 4 CantuS

I don't think the skillgap is that massive between USA and Sweden however.

How is the skill gap massive between USA and Sweden ? If you compare role by role/player by player, it isn't.
Yes Tviq is one of the best players in the game, but Misfits have Tviq as well, and they were not doing good until recently, and even then not that great. And if you ask me, their saving grace was Chips on flex support instead of Zebbo, who went back to shotcalling for the WC.

I don't follow the OCE scene really so I wouldn't know, but Australia wasn't so bad, they had some great moments. If they got destroyed by BLANK, it means USA got some tough competition ahead, but I don't see them get demolished with the roster they have.

I think the general consensus has been that the USA team could have been made much stronger than it currently is, and therefore people don't think that the team can live up to the hype that's supposed to surround them as they are a giant in eSports. I personally think that the synergy between the players could be excellent, clearly something KyKy also saw between them when having trials. Having said that though, they are coming up against two ready made teams (possibly 3, not sure about New Zealand), and so whether or not they can compete with that we'll have to wait and see. As for who they face if they make the top two, on paper both the UK and Germany have very good teams and in my opinion (obviously I'm biased with the UK) could both match up against any of the teams, with perhaps the exception of Taiwan, in group G. I expect them to qualify from their group, but I don't think they've got the same guarantee that the likes of France, China and Sweden have had in qualifying for BlizzCon.

Even though i think Taiwan has a high chance of finishing first i also think the USA has an even higher chance of qualifying. As I currently see it they're the 2nd best team out of those 8 so I would give them the advantage over the first or 2nd place team of Group H.

For the purpose of having the best chance of going deeper in the tournament I think they're better off finishing in 2nd and getting either Canada, Russia or the Netherlands depending on who wins what matchup and avoiding South Korea.

Personally I'm rooting for a USA vs Canada QF matchup cause it might be the only chance we have to get one!