Contenders rule changes for 2019 announced

#1

gomak

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hey perhaps the reason OWL is majority korean is that it's the only region with any reasonable amount of support whatsoever

#2

Redd

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the soft region lock is a step in the right direction though

#3

LaurenceR

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I disagree. It will just encourage OWL teams to pick from the one region where they know the infrastructure is established (Korea). Without proper infrastructure the other regions won't develop to the same extent, and there'll just be this weird mis-match of players

#4

lyl

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OW.eu is so bad :(

#6

lyl

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it hurts.

#5

Toga

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Still no international competition so top teams can actually prove their worth against each other for OWL :[

#7

lyl

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"a truly global league" - I bet this isnt what Blizzard envisioned

#8

LaurenceR

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I think it is what Blizzard envisioned. Just not what everyone else thought Blizzard envisioned.

#17

KuroiRyuu9625

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In the recording there was talk of possibly doing something but the presenter stressed that he couldn't promise anything.

Though, I think that because of costs and logistics we'd probably get a "Playoff bracket" at best. It does look more feasible now that they want to add an 8th region but from the tone of the leaks it sounds like cutting costs is the main focus, or at least, it's what it felt like to me.

#10

Hi

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It's actually so sad :(

#9

Hi

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While I think the longer seasons and decrease to the number of teams is shitty, I don't mind that new academy teams will get a shot at contenders first before being relegated. The reason I don't mind is that most of the academy teams will have to pick up the teams that would be in contenders or contenders trials anyways (such as lnl). The region lock I just don't know whether I like or not. On the one hand it'll be nice for people that wouldn't otherwise make it to contenders level to make it there. On the other hand it will probably decrease the level of play instead of increasing it locally. Overtime teams will get better but they will probably always be behind the Korean contenders level. Which lets be honest they are anyways. And in some regions like AU and EU the region lock probably won't matter at all. They better fucking have lans or I will rage.

#11

murasaki

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the absolute state of OW esports

#12

Explodey

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Well, I don't think the soft region-locking will change things much. If you think about it. There aren't that many teams with more than 4 players from other region in Contenders anyways. The only teams that this prevents is teams like Lucky Future Zenith, which kind of makes sense. I wasn't fan of an idea of teams moving to weaker region to win the tournament money.
I just don't know how the Pacific region will work now though. Will Australian teams and Korean teams be allowed to play in the Pacific region? Or would it only be for the countries without designated Contenders regions?

#16

Hi

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Yeah does anyone know about the pacific region? because that would be like more than half the teams there would have to make huge changes. I think out of the two group last year one of them was entirely korean. As for blank and LFZ I think blank is returning to AU anyways but maybe they were told ahead of time and LFZ was entirely picked up by various owl teams.

#19

KuroiRyuu9625

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PAC had 5 full KR teams. Just for kicks, if we assume that no teams would have disbanded (OWL pickups included) 17 KR players playing in that region would have needed to come back home.

The number is probably still similar possibly even a bit higher if the players on disbanded teams decide not to stay in the region.

What's going to be interesting is how much of a gap will need to be filled (if at all) and if the KR region will have enough teams to fit deserving talent.

#13

Emaxmagnus

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I see this causing new issues instead of fixing old problems

#14

KuroiRyuu9625

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So, an odd effect this could have is on the KR region itself. Because of the region locking more players than ever will be returning to Korea, but the number of Contenders teams has been reduced to 8, instead of having been expanded to accommodate the influx of talent that's eventually going to come in.

My guess is that will make the KR region even more condensed in talent...possibly to a point where better players aren't being seen because their teams didnt make it.

All of this could lead to players from KR being considered in even higher regards for OWL, over other regions, but more importantly, it could also add to the discontent of yet another region that feels like Blizz doesn't care about them.

At the very least this is what it feels like to me in regards to the KR region. For the other ones I think 8 teams makes sense, but the prize pool redistribution will make it harder for "decent" teams to stay active and will probably cause a lot of team/player turnover, or at least even more than we already see now, imo.

Now, I think I can grasp the direction that Blizz wants to go with this, but I don't agree that Academy teams should get a free pass every other Contenders Season (if the leaked video mentioning that they get re-invited to the first one of each year automatically still stands). Academy teams already have the huge advantage of getting access to more resources and support. On the other hand non sponsored teams already have it hard and because of rules put in place by Blizzard many teams just can't get sponsored.

I'm really hoping that my first impression of all of this is wrong and that it works out somehow, but I'm not holding my breath. I'll let the state of the game do it's own talking in hopes that changes are made if/when they are needed and that the house of cards doesn't crumble before they do anything about it.

OWL/OWC 2019 is going to be something, I pray that it's something good rather than bad.

#15

Hi

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That's a good point about the how much more the 8 team cap will effect the korean contenders due to players returning. Hadn't thought of that.

#22

Frozello

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Looking at how many Koreans were signed into OWL Season 2 from KR Contenders (or Pacific and China Contenders) though... Sure there's plenty Korean talent in Open Division or so, but at least 4-5 Korean Contenders teams lost their players to OWL teams and I think I am not even counting Korean players from China/Pacific Contenders yet. It's not really a surprise, when Toronto, Vancouver, Shanghai and Florida signed already 6+ Koreans into their rosters and presumable 1-2 of the new Chinese teams also are going for nearly full Korean too. Where as Atlanta and Washington are likely to sign 3-4 Koreans too.

At the moment, if looking at new players for Season 2 it's pretty heavy for Korea...(I only did count players who did not play at all for Season 1, did not count players like Envy, Hagopeun etc.) And I can say I might have calculated Koreans incorrectly.... since there's so many of them...

Korea 27
USA 4
France 3
Finland 2
Denmark, Germany, Iceland, New Zealand, Poland, Russia and United Kingdom each 1 (Well technically Finnsi was in S1, but after all he didnt play...)

So Region wise Korea 27, Europe 11, NA 4, New Zealand 1. Not very balanced yet. It's going to be even more heavily leaning to Korea, when Chinese teams and Vancouver announce their rosters...

#18

Rooky

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Idk about region locking contenders when
THE MAJORITY OF EU PLAYERS TRY TO PLAY ON NA ACADEMY TEAMS BECAUSE IT'S THE ONLY WAY TO MAKE A LIVING OR GET EXPOSURE

#20

Rooky

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Accessible path to pro btw

#23

KuroiRyuu9625

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Path to poverty btw

#21

Wombat

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Blizzard could so easily subsidise a successful T2 scene but nah

#24

wentaway

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Honestly wasn't expecting anything different, this direction is in line with what they started in 2017, prior to OWL S1.

The main reason? Investors, plain and simple.

No relegation or promotion in OWL, why? Many reasons imo the main one is, if one of your clients paid you all those mills for a spot, he'd really hate ending up in the T2 scene (e.g. Shangai, Florida) with no visibility at all.

Very strict and relatively limiting rules to follow if you want to organize an OW torunament (limited sponsors, limited prizepools, etc...), Why? Anything big enough could remove visibility and willingness to get into a new season of OWL.

Academy teams automatically invited to each years's 1st Contenders season, why? They are owned by the same guys of the 2 points above, visibility, do you think the owners of Hurricanes and Spitfire were happy that their team could even risk falling out of Contenders?

Is it ever going to change? Not really, not until OWL stops enlarging with the addition of new spots/franchises, or unless for some weird unexpected reason the OW scene will suddenly die.

#25

KuroiRyuu9625

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So, OWL not having relegation is in line with NA sports leagues, so that's not surprising to me. It's the whole point of OWL's franchising model, and probably how they got the investors in the first place, not something they do to keep them. So I don't think it's a good talking point if the league is literally built on the concept.

I can also kind of understand why they'd want their Academy teams to get a free pass every other Contenders season, but I still disagree with it. Specially if the prize pool is now more top heavy and how unfriendly this is towards non-Academy teams or league that have few/none (aka everywhere that's not NA).

#26

wentaway

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Not saying it's a wrong business decision, on the contrary it's the best one, people organizing this kind of "stuff" are not scrubs like me, they really know what they are doing.

And that's the guiding principle for all decisions regarding OW, again nothing wrong in it as long as people understands that's not done to make the scene/league better, not for the players and not for the viewers.

EDIT: btw that's also the main reason why it's mainly NA traditional leagues that have no promotions/relegations.

#27

wentaway

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Btw, form our lord of the candles:
https://twitter.com/Meza_OW/status/1056988219588444162

#28

CookieBeast

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The increase in Korean OWL teams means at least a few of them won’t do well which might hopefully make less of next years expansion teams mostly korean