I'd argue that LGE is weaker than Team USA because LGE has a very difficult time coordinating an effective dive. So much so that they've fallen relatively behind compared to a number of tier 2 teams.

A lot of the current full NA teams don't have the luxury of a top tier Tracer the level of Sinatraa and a Flexible DPS who also happens to be a tactical genius in the way he sees the game.

Their losses were similar enough that I see them as having the same weakness Meta Athena had in Season 2 when they had their amazing run. A gaping weakness to aggressive dive, a play style you don't see that much of in the OPC. BLANK used to run tanks and had to adjust but their dive is no where near what USA and UK threw at them today. Scrimming and coaching won't do much to help you if you run into a comp or play style that you're haven't had a chance to scrim against consistently and at that level of proficiency.

You're correct, these are huge losses but they get to bring those losses back with them and learn from them and I think that's good for them in the long run. It's a good wake up call for sure.

I agree with KuroiRyuu here, while they got rolled and it looks really bad, this happens a lot to teams that come to a new region regardless of meta. Not sure rogue is a good example cos they did really well in scrims but eunited and LK both went to korea and said they got destroyed and every other european team says that since they came back they've improved a huge amount. Yeah FW got rolled but they'll be stronger than ever given the exposure through scrims and these matches.

I think the value of being an actual team is very high, but I also think that it won't overcome a large skill gap or superior tactics, and in the case of USA/UK vs Taiwan it may have been both individual skill man per man on top of very solid basics, better engagements and as I mentioned, a favourable play style.

As far as I can see you're making a similar point to #24 but I think the U-teams in these groups had the unique situation of having a group of players that would be able to compete for the top in their region, in this current meta and everything south of the tier 1 teams like eUnited, IMT, Rogue or nV if fair game for both them and FW. Just want to note that I never mentioned them actually beating T1 teams, just the ones below them because right now there's a clear distinction of who's at the top of each region.

I'm not sure what you mean with the nationality bit and the part about them wasting their time since language is usually more of a barrier than nationality but a high level of understanding of the game tends to break that down a bit if you look at our Korean imports.

Now, of course not every region is made equal, the lack of cross region tournaments makes actually ranking them a very subjective thing and my main region for saying they'd have no problems competing with our region's tier 2 is because of the way they lost both those matches and how they had started to adjust their own play to try and cope. Though they had some level of success, their passiveness also gave the U-teams quite a bit of time to plan or react.

As a region OCE is most certainly weaker overall, but I believe that the top teams that came from their aren't. FW in particular might actually fall somewhere in our region's tier 2 if not at the top of it looking at the current scene, imo.