Happy birthday to youuuuuu, happy birthday to youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu, happy biiiirthday deeeaar Overwaaaaaaatch... Happy birthday to you.

I hope Jeff has some bloody great presents for us all.

While you get your party shoes on and prepare to rip into wrapping paper, have a read/watch of the awesome content from this week in Overwatch.

Snapshots in Time ep. 1 w/ MonteCristo

By Elbion

The link above is to the entire Snapshots in Time playlist, so far up to three episodes with more planned. The series explores Overwatch’s first official year as an esport, the climate it finds itself in, the goals it has set, and how that compares to a range of previous top esports.

How does Overwatch’s first year compare to League of Legends’? What about Dota 2’s infancy? Starcraft II’s birth? With genuine experts from each esport and future episodes planned, this is a series to follow.

Runback: An Early RunAway Evaluation

Esports Heaven - by Volamel

RunAway have played two games so far in APEX Season 3, neither with their planned main tank players Kaiser or Kalios. Building compositions around Mirage instead, RunAway were initially crushed by AF.Blue but came back to edge out a win over Kongdoo Uncia in their second game.

How far can RunAway really go with the issues hounding them this season?

After recovering from an illness that plagued them during their opening game in APEX Season 3 against a resurgent Afreeca Freecs Blue, RunAway came sprinting back in their second series of OGN’s Overwatch League against KongDoo Uncia. All rested and prepared to show a better performance, RunAway came off the gun with a slow start but started to catch their stride as the evening progressed.

RunAway’s eight-man roster is something that has been crucial in the success of the team as of late. What's surprising is that RunAway actually has a deep bench — something that can’t really be said for a lot of other teams in Overwatch currently. The team relied on Haksal and Bumper to really step up and have clutch performances in the frontline as KAISER sat on the sidelines. We haven’t even seen what Kalios brings to the table. So, to be fair, the seven-man roster that RunAway has shown thus far is what is noteworthy. RunAway’s runback against KongDoo Uncia looked like a brand new team, fresh off a good night's sleep and completely revitalized.

Overwatch Gameplay | Is Triple Support the New Meta? [LW BLUE vs MVP Space] OGN APEX S3 Highlights

Akshon Esports

Akshon Esports have been excellent at pumping out regular post-match interviews at APEX. The insights are hidden away at the end of their highlight videos; like the equivalent at Inven, these interviews are often brief and rarely very detailed, but the Akshon interviewers can still mine gems of insight from the teams present.

This particular interview with Luna, following LW Blue’s win over MVP Space, revolves mainly around the use of Korean triple support strategies. He also comments on their lack of triple DPS and focus on being a more defensively-minded team.

AVRL on the Asia-Pacific region: “...APAC will undoubtedly be one of the strongest regions in the world.”

Esports Heaven - by RadoN

AVRL is one of the colour casters covering the Overwatch Pacific Championship for its English audience. In this interview he explores the strengths of Blank, Flash Wolves, and ahq, the top three teams in the tournament, as well as making the case for why APAC will be one of the strongest regions in the world.

Speaking of Blank, many fans know of their win-streak and famously they scrimmed Korean teams, even when they were back in Oceania, but with them playing in less popular regions not many have actually seen their games. What made the team so much better than everyone else?

Their ability to understand how to progress further allowed them to always stay ahead of the curve in Oceania, eventually they had to scrim beyond here to improve any further. After winning some Taiwanese online tournaments and scrimming Korean teams they really skyrocketed beyond any other team in the Oceanic region. They are very [well] suited to the current triple DPS playstyle predominantly running ieatuup on permanent Tracer. He is by far the “star-player” of the team, who consistently has the ability to bring back a losing game for Blank no matter how dire the circumstances (with a grain of salt). As they play against Korean teams the majority of the time, they definitely take a page out of the Korean scene to mold the basis of their own gameplay.

Overwatch Gameplay | EnVyUs EFFECT : The Invisible Tracer vs Meta Athena | OGN APEX S3 Highlights

Akshon Esports

The title suggests highlights, the link will give you an interview. It’s a magical place, the internet.

This time the Akshon crew interviewed HarryHook following EnVyUs’ defeat of Meta Athena in their opening APEX Season 3 game. He talks about their new recruit EFFECT, getting revenge on Meta Athena, and completing the reverse sweep against their toughest group opponent.

Splyce co-owner Marty Strenczewilk talks in-depth about LCS franchising, Overwatch League and the importance of dissenting opinions

Slingshot Esports - by Vince Nairn

Marty Strenczewilk, CEO of Splyce, talks in this interview about the franchising expedition that the LCS is about to embark upon and why the organisation dropped their Overwatch roster.

The quote clipped below is just a portion of his explanation of the Overwatch situation, and his thoughts on franchising in LCS should be borne in mind when thinking about how organisations will interact with the franchising in OWL.

VN: I know you guys dropped your Overwatch roster last week. You said at the time you’re still interested in the game and Overwatch League. How would you sum up the Overwatch scene right now?

MS: Very expensive with little monetization. And the reason I say that is not — whenever a game gets hyped, the salaries go up, right? Teams coming in, everyone going after players, and the salaries rise. The problem is there’s no competitions for the players to play in. When the biggest event in a month is the Alienware Monthly, with a ($10,000 prize, $6,000 for first place)? That’s the state of the scene. The last major offline tournament was Vegas in December, and there’s nothing in the foreseeable future. For me, the biggest turning point was when DreamHack said they weren’t gonna do it.

THIS IS UP&DOWN WINSTON! LW Blue Janus shows how to play winston - APEX S3 OPEN MIC

OGN

If you’ve made it to the end then you deserve a treat. Like all of the open mic highlights from APEX, OGN have crafted a funny look behind the scenes - this time with the LW Blue vs CONBOX Spirit game.