#PrayForTheUSA
I feel like this will be way closer than people think. Not just because of Mercy, but the US squad is pretty good tbh.
So many good matchups in this game too.
Also interested in knowing how Fl0w3r's Pharah is cause JAKE's is pretty good, and Adam's Mercy (assuming he'll be playing her here) is better than Jehong's by a stretch.
Flow3r has one of the best Pharah's in the game, Jake doesn't have a scratch on him. The influence of Adam however could massively help him, but I still don't see it being enough. I think it'll take a lot of ground work from sinatraa for the USA to come out on top, but against Saeb I don't think it'll happen.
I think you're putting SBB way too high on the rankings. Don't get me wrong, one of the best korean tracers, but Sinatraa is sick too (and god knows how much I hate myself for saying this).
Also CoolMatt and Zunba are pretty neck and neck on Dva. The rest is heavily in Korea's favour besides Adam's Mercy vs Jehong's.
3-1 SK, but a close series overall.
I think the only question here is Jake really. I think the rest of the match ups are at least comparable. If Jake shows up with a solid Pharah and some solid Mcree play should they need it, this is very winnable. His Junkrat will certainly be good but if APAC has shown anything, it's that Mcree is pretty good right now and Sinatraa's Mcree, unless he's been grinding behind the scenes, is not that strong.
KyKy has shown he can win against the Koreans before though so I trust him as a coach to have what USA needs.
As long as Rawkus doesn't get picked when they run Sombra. It absolutly blew my mind how a Sombra with EMP can get picked by a Widow, i get it, nerves and all, obviously i haven't played in that environment, but everyone else on the team did fine. In EnvyUs vs Faze, the Contenders Season 1 final, on Anubis, he got picked twice, once on first once on second point, Envy won both of the fights after and took the map, if he played safer they could have taken the map which was pretty close, as for Jake, he is on an OWL team and he can really focus on the game and not really worry about the future.
This is very doable to USA. Neither Jehong or Tobi are great Mercy players and their positioning often gets them killed since they can't peel for themselves as they would normally be able to do.
If she's not toned down before they play, which is very likely, we could see the biggest upset of the tournament. And no matter what the team USA boys say, it would be a massive upset, imo.
In any case it's clear that they can do this!
This game is extremely winnable. JAKE's mechanical skill may not be as impressive as Flow3rs, but he's a talented player who's unquestionably a great leader for them in game. Adam and Rawkus will unquestionably be the stronger support duo this time around, while FCTFCTN and Coolmatt seem to have developed a great duo chemistry that should be enough to take on Miro and Zunba's recently lackluster play. Sinatraa and SBB are around even, but I give the edge to Sinatraa because of his flexibility to his terrifying good Zarya and a solid genji.
USA's got this. It'll be close, but I say USA wins 3-2 or maybe even 3-1
Adam and Rawkus will unquestionably be the stronger support duo this time around
That's going to depend on how strong Mercy is when they play, and even then, I think it levels the playing field more than anything. I wouldn't go as far as making team USA the favorites here since no matter how much they like to posture about their strength, they're the ones that need to prove themselves, not the other way around.
This Reddit comment made me chuckle:
[–]TYsunshineRunaway to victory — RunAway | Seoul Dynasty 53 points 6 hours ago*
I'd say with thejehong nerfmercy patch, the other teams have a chance to take a point.
It's either a nerf on Jehong or Tobi, whoever they decide to put on Mercy, unless they go with a no-Mercy comp which could work but they'd be at a big disadvantage against a very good team.
I'll be looking very forward to seeing if team USA can take advantage of this or if team SK are able to compensate and outplay them.
As for results my gut feeling is that SK win 3-1, but honestly I can't really tell since we haven't seen either teams scrim against opponents their counterpart also played against.
It's interesting that although GCB and RA ran mostly mercy during the APAC finals, they did swap off for speedboost sometimes. I think lucio does still have some viability, and if SK can make good use of him, they would have an edge.
I want USA to win, and I think it will be off of KyKy's coaching and preparation. The players are skilled enough, but whether or not they can take advantage of the "jehong nerf" will be the deciding factor.
US pharmercy should be better than SK's, if Sinatraa pulls his weight (which he probably will). I think the boys in red, white, and blue take control and assault, and SK take escort and hybrid. If they play double control like they did in contenders finals, USA wins.
Predict: 3-2 USA.
Fans: Yay, with the new Mercy buffs the USA may stand a chance of beating South Korea
Blizzard: Ana damage per shot 60 -> 70
Fans: No please! What are you doing?
Blizzard: Mercy cast time for rez: 1.75 seconds
Fans: Noooooooo...
Blizzard: Mercy can be stunted to interup rez
Fans: Stop, she's already dead
I'm annoyed with how undersold some players on the US team are on this forum.. talking about Flow3r like an immortal god when we have seen him ghost in big games. I don't think anyone would disagree with SK being a better squad, my point is I think it's insane to think they are untouchable when they have to travel to a LAN in the US against a USA team that is not mechanically far behind, has proven great synergy and chemistry and has had so much time to prepare for one match on a new meta not to mention. South Korea will win but anyone who thinks a US upset is impossible is drinking koolaid imo
TBH, I can’t understand why people are overrating USA.
Yes, they are good compared to other westerners, but they have to face to SK.
Do you guys remember APEX S2, S3, or IEM?
The best western team was always destroyed by KR tier 1.5 or tier 2 team.
Even in the mercy meta, I’m sure that SK will absolutely destroy USA.
After having watched the first 3 maps this is probably the best overwatch map I've seen.Unfortunately this is also the weirdest game I've ever seen and looks staged af(weird/bad positioning at times, weird initiatations, weird target priority e.g. Flow3r on widow on second point on hanamura, team fights going one way but in the last minute the winning team gets wiped counter to the flow of the fight[happened a lot of times], weird hero choices by the Koreans although that might be normal for Korea I guess)
These two teams were so evenly matched up till hanamura going back and forth and having really close fights.But on the last two maps Korea stomped the USA in like 20 mins in total.There are 3 possibilities:1) it was staged to make it look closer than it should/could have been(increase NA interest in esports for OWL) 2) Korea was just effing around for the first 3 maps 3) USA choked harder than any other team I've ever seen/fell apart
If you think that was a conspiracy-level choke then I really don't think you've watched much OW. It was a very normal-level tilt. Happens almost all the time in tourneys. You lose or tie a game you thought you won, then everything starts getting a lot harder. Both teams were clearly trying and both teams were playing great up until the tilting point, when the USA started to get sloppy.
But seriously, it happens all the time. I wonder what tournaments you have been watching that don't go this way.
SK stomped US in Gibraltar and Oasis because of one man - Fl0w3r. Jake was saying how SK wasn't as adaptable as US, well clearly he and his crew couldn't adapt to Fl0w3r's Widow and Pharah on Gibraltar and Oasis.
Add in the fact that US was stupid enough to swap Adam, one of the if not the best NA Mercy to Lucio and let Rawkus, an insane Zen take over Mercy duties who then proceeded to get picked off first in every team fight in Oasis.
I'm glad I'm not the only one that had this feeling south Korea made so many mistakes that they normally would never do. like mano just jumping in without any backup or any heal.
Wouldn't shock me if blizzard told them to take it easy on them the first maps and maybe let them win maps.
Because they just switched from 0 to 100 every time they took over a point they rolled over them like a plow
There is so much going on in the game between keeping track of abilities, ultimates and mercy res'ing people early or mid team fight, knowing when the best time to engage, rotating defensive and attacking positions and doing all that working as a team. Also there wasn't much lucio play the help with engages and disengages. people are bound to make mistakes.
The difference between Fl0w3r and Jake really showed in the last two maps. Sad to say that Jake's Pharah didn't make an impact on Oasis.
Kudos to Fl0w3r for carrying in the game, Coolmatt69 for consistently deleting Tobi with D.va, Adam being the better Mercy imo and Rawkus just clutching some QCQ and long distance kills with Zen. (He saved FCTFCTN's Orisa on Nepal from a flanking Saebyolbe and FCTFCTN didn't even noticed. That was really funny.)
edit: Messed up some names.
edit2: This is the clip: https://clips.twitch.tv/TentativeSpoopySandstormTriHard
After Fl0w3rs tire, I think he called to the team that FCTFCTN was low and Saeb came for the kill.
Not sure what you mean, but as you said it was a year ago, with a completely different roster, also against a completely different roster.
This will be extremely difficult for France since Nico is going to get absolutely focused down as the weak link. Soon is probably going to be kept in check by SBB, much like Sinatraa was for good parts of their match.
I don't see France fairing better than USA, this match was as close as anyone's going to get to defeating SK unless Sweden can also pull off some heroics, imo.
Yes. Did you not see how the USA stayed in team fights mostly because of Adam's mercy? Tobi on the other hand kept getting picked off early in team fights, and in this meta, the team with the better mercy pretty much wins most of team fights. That's one of the reasons why US kept it close. Even with mr 150k sinatraa being a no show that entire matchup the US almost won because of the Junkrat mercy meta