Toronto Esports drop Overwatch

https://twitter.com/TOesports/status/1062206474624159745

long time coming

the owner is a... character

this seems too aggressive...

Some thing about TO being around for MULTIPLE YEARS BEFORE DEFIANT EXISTED but still Blizzard favour OWL again

I swear someone will need to start writing an obituary for tier 2 by the end of OWL season 2

Rooky [#4]

Some thing about TO being around for MULTIPLE YEARS BEFORE DEFIANT EXISTED but still Blizzard favour OWL again

I swear someone will need to start writing an obituary for tier 2 by the end of OWL season 2

To be fair, you can't tell me you don't see the potential for confusion here. Toronto eSports is the academy team for Boston Uprising, when there's another team called Toronto Defiant -- and if they were to have their own academy team it would be called Toronto Academy probably.

First they kill off T3 and soon T2. (There is a joke here, find it)

TearsOW [#5]

To be fair, you can't tell me you don't see the potential for confusion here. Toronto eSports is the academy team for Boston Uprising, when there's another team called Toronto Defiant -- and if they were to have their own academy team it would be called Toronto Academy probably.

For years the Chicago Wolves were the minor league hockey team of the Atlanta Thrashers, while the Rockford Ice Hogs were the minor league team of the Chicago Blackhawks. Fans who care enough to pay attention to the t2 scene would have been able to figure it out.

How come everything Boston related is just a pure mess?

Wombat [#8]

How come everything Boston related is just a pure mess?

Because bilicheck isnt there boring players and staff into line.

wouldve been hysterical if they straight up removed the "toronto" and kept playing under the name "esports"

The CEO seems to be very nice person.

Jebaited

Raisin [#7]

For years the Chicago Wolves were the minor league hockey team of the Atlanta Thrashers, while the Rockford Ice Hogs were the minor league team of the Chicago Blackhawks. Fans who care enough to pay attention to the t2 scene would have been able to figure it out.

But there's still a large amount of people who pay very little attention, if any at all, to T2. That is where the problem lies. In your NHL-AHL comparison, the way to distinguish the Blackhawks and the Wolves is by just using their names. Toronto Defiant could just be referred to as "Defiant", but most teams in OWL are referred to by just using the place that they represent (Come on Florida, just switch to Miami already, so I'd be able to just say city). The exceptions to that are, of course, Valiant and Gladiators, since they're both based in LA. But with Toronto esports, you can only shorten it to Toronto.

ideekae [#10]

wouldve been hysterical if they straight up removed the "toronto" and kept playing under the name "esports"

Every match would sound like a court case.

Envy v. esports
Last Night's Leftovers v. esports
NRG v. esports (This also sounds like it could be a civil war)
GOATs v. esports (Maybe not in Contenders, Also a very good court case)

It's ridiculous how close minded people are.

I realize that we have no concrete information on what happened, but people just jump to blaming blizzard. The beginning of the article says that Toronto themselves branded their name.

JakobCP [#15]

It's ridiculous how close minded people are.

I realize that we have no concrete information on what happened, but people just jump to blaming blizzard. The beginning of the article says that Toronto themselves branded their name.

This case is pretty black and white. TO Esports had a brand name and were told by Blizzardthey had to change it it remain in Overwatch.

The Toronto Defiant isn't in the wrong here, they'd of course want to be the only "Toronto team" in Overwatch but it'd not hard to understand why TO Esports wouldn't want to do that and would instead just drop out even if it's not a good look.

I think this is a pretty simple case to assess and given the state of the T2 scene it's not hard to think that people would be upset at Blizzard for "forcing out" another team even though the latter was given "a choice", imo.