there's one less game played that day so only 3 games

Depends on which platform i'm viewing from,
On my PC i would watch the overall match VODS since i actually find the talks on the desks quite interesting and it gives the vibe of watching the game live.
If i'm viewing from my phone I would watch the individual map vods because they are more accessible on the OWL app but a downside from last year is that it takes a bit of time for the vod to be uploaded

https://twitter.com/FLMayhem/status/1096531065575899137

they keep mentioning how the general public is sleeping on Zacharees hero pool. Best if we wait till the season starts before assuming that he takes up a hitscan role which DF has plenty taking up the spot. On the other note, anyone know if there's a preseason for season 2 just like there was one at the start of December last year??? It would be great to see how the new teams play, along with new trades on already established teams.

in response:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_hNU5wUTN8

the art used in that tweet is amazing

:( no one believes :(

:)

:(

Squid1 AWAKE Squid2 THE Squid3 AKRAKEN Squid4

honestly though this guy is nuts!!! saw him a couple of times in DM and he can snipe with that ana

Name your favourite (feel free to say why too):
OWL team - Gladiatos
Current non-OWL team(s) - Runaway
Pre-OWL team(s) - EnVyUs
Player (only one allowed) - Mickie :D
Other players - Surefour, Taimou, SBB, Seagull, Custa
Streamer(s) - Calvin, Dafran, Kabaji
Caster combo - UberX
Analyst duo - Sideshow and Bren
Main desk presenter - Malik
Match - S2 gladiators vs spitfire
Tournament - Apex - been following all the games
In-game moment - Galdiators 900iq strats in the quarter finals on KR against the spitfire
Clutch moment - Mickie's d.va stall on oasis
OWL entrance - snillos rocky entrance

About your personal Overwatch career:
SR now - placements probably in Gold somewhere
SR peak - 3055
SR goal for this season - have a positive winrate playing sombra ;)
Main class - support
Main hero - try to main a new hero every season but i play the best with zen
Other heroes you regularly play - i would consider myself proficient with most heroes except hammond, genji. hanzo and doomfist
Favourite hero - Ana
Hero you hate - doomfist
Favourite map - lijiang
Map you hate - hanamura
Favourite game mode - competitive and deathmatch
Least favourite game mode - total mayhem, had once got 26 minutes of objective time playing lucio in that gamemode
Best play - always loved getting a phat grav
Best achievement - getting to diamond maining ana when she was super strong
Reason why you play Overwatch - addicted to the game
What got you into Overwatch in the first place - played a lot of tf2 before OW, easy transition

About other video games:
Games you are playing at the moment - Osu!
Other esports you watch - only watch OW esports
First game you ever played - Jak and Daxter the precurser legacy on PS2
Favourite game as a kid - the jak and daxter series
Favourite game of all time - OW
Biggest achievement in a video game - making friends and meeting new communities

About you personally (no pressure to answer any of this if you don't want to):
Age - 22
Location - Sydney Australia
Describe yourself in 3 words - Chill, relaxed, laidback
Favourite music artist - Crywolf
Favourite music genre - Chillstep
Sports you play - cricket, tennis
Sports you watch - same as the above
Hobbies - mostly play videogames or hang out with freinds
Weird fact about you - contant daydreamer
Shameless social media plugs -

what a loss of honour

Sounds legit! Can totally imagine Melbourne being an OWL city although Sydney is obviously a better option Kappa. A good city name for Melbourne would be the Melbourne Apostles, after the twelve apostles which is a Victorian natural tourist attraction. And whatever happened to the OWL power rankings?

gotta trust Mykl, our number 2 source for the news and the juice.

Keen to see your content! I believe you have one of the best understandings of the competitive environment in Australia and can provide some quality professional content about the aussie WC team.

Feelsbadman!! I guess the twitch/youtube community will end up pulling more votes than this website. I always believed Mert!!

hey at least maccas gives the boys some support...

So those of us in the eastern time-zones of the world have always enjoyed watching the overwatch league starting in the morning and spanning all throughout the day, where even in Australia most of the OWL games start at 9 in the morning and end at 3. Having the games in NY does make it slightly annoying to watch the games live at the break of dawn, still going to watch them though...

Thanks for clarifying, Love your Au contenders rankings and other articles you produce. You got my vote my dude!

IDK man you're not really selling yourself there aside from being an over.gg resident. What can you offer so that we can create the best Australian team for this years WC so that I know that my one single vote is being used for a good purpose??

The Overwatch League has man players who we can easily look up to and strive to be as large fans of the game and sport. So I've been a huge follower of Custa and read a recent interview with him and what he strives to be in the OWL. In addition to the juicy comparison of the management of LAV and DF he goes on to talk setting an example to the younger teammates specially with coping with the OWL lifestyle. It should be mentioned that even KyKy commended Custa for being the most "adult" on the DF roster. As such i think he represents a perfect role-model as someone aspiring players can look up to in addition to the in-game knowledge, game-sense and mechanics we can see from OWL players streams.

So who to you think is a good OWL role-model and why?

Just like lunatic hai in apex season 1?

the group stage in sydney was honestly the most lit OW venue. best crowds, best seats, best games, best cosplay.

Gotta maintain the Australian Meme Dream team

MT: tyrodin
FT Loserfruit
Hitscan: Mcreamy
Projectile: Arikadou
MH: Oasis
FH Muselk

But in all seriousness the australian contenders scene is producing many talents it's hard to point out a significant player that absolutely stands out and makes it much tougher than pulling in Blank esports as a whole. I would like to soo my boy custa in the team again as he's already the only aussie representative in the OWL.

I reckon it's a very smart idea to keep Flower up to the professional level and hone his skills in scrimms rather than the ranked ladder.

I just think that the Gladiators tend to just shut down in the face of a good widow. Although surefour has his moments he's just not as good as the top widows in the league. A similar thing also happened against the outlaws where linkzrs widow just completely shut down the gladiators. On other factors the Gladiators do have a really good defense the only factor which the Fusion win the final fight is when the Gladiators expended all their ults.

they have this feature on the overwatch league website although what makes this site great is the inclusions of the maps scores as well which can be a determinant factor in playoffs. Having both on the over.gg website is really helpful as this is the main source of my competitive news. also another thing is that the match-ups are updated each week for this stage where as in stage one the entire matchups for the entire was already there... just a note.

Unfortunately no South Americans :(

I trust not only did he cause you to lose the fight but also gave them a bunch of ult charge but only shooting at shields and hooking at it cause why not

Hi, first time posting here ^^

So i've been following the overwatch league quite closely and noticed that although all teams played 10 games for the entirety of stage one, each team will have at least one other whom they will miss out playing in this stage. With playoff just around the corner, I can't help but ponder what impact these unplayed games would have on the standings. Keep in note this is only for stage one and will probably will be redundant later on in the stages when player pickups and so on happens. So the following is a list of all 6 of the games unplayed by each team and my personal opinion on their effect on the overall standing just for stage one. Keep in mind that this thread is pure speculation and may come to a more of an accurate understanding if i had access to any form of statistics but i'm too lazy to browse every single player and mostly just giving a part of my own biased opinion.

New York Excelsior vs. San Francisco Shock
Going to start off the the top of the standing as of the moment with NYXL and this match would surely put them fruther into that number 1 spot. While Sinatraa has been off in the bench and Danteh has pulled an amazing tracer it is nothing comparable to the amazing tracer play of Saebyeolbe. I find the tank line in NYXL to be vastly superior to SFS as both Mano and Mek0 challenge the No.1 spot in the league with their reapective roles, while Nomy and Nevix played quite well it just doesn't compare. Same could be said for the support line (JJonak is such a joy to watch). I think this game could push SFS further down the leader board into that 10th position as labels in the weekly power ranking, it just doesn't show in the map score line.

London Spitfire vs. Los Angeles Gladiators
This one is pretty difficult to predict but i would have to give this to although i would support the LAG all the way (huge fan). I storngly believe this would be a really close match (depending how on point LAG performs) but it would only push LDN closer towards that No.2 spot depending on how LDNvNYXL turns out. The largely complete roster of LDN would give them the specialist advantage over the LAG who by far are more consistent on their heroes and contain that large selection of players to choose from. On the gladiators side, it just comes down to their performance on the day. Previously I found that Asher was seriously underperforming on his roles and his tracer in no way match up with that of profit and birdring. The lack of clarity between Surefour and Hydration on their overlapping hero pools of pharah and genji leaves me confused as to where to play what when, i guess credit that to their coaches but i believe it would be better if they could clarify their roles a bit (maybe is just Surefour being a unicorn of all trades, yet compared to the specialists, master of none, except probably soldier).

Seoul Dynasty vs. Philadelphia Fusion
Finally we're getting to the difficult predictions where the teams are so close together on the map standings and the upset potential is insane. With one more game until the playoffs, I think it's pretty normal to assume that Philly would be out of the running for the playoff spot, but what if amirite? For the seoul dynasty, it's pretty easy to assume that they're going to win the next match against FLA, so it just depends on the map score of other and train so they get that 4-0 if the FLA are as hopeless as they are (sorry!). Now between the two teams its really hard to predict unless you go in depth with the specific playstyles of each core member. Interestingly enough i'll have to give this one to PHL simply because Neptuno is the better mercy. Seoul in my opinion has always struggles with mercy in the currrent meta although Tobi is trying is absolute best has moments of glory, it just pains me internally seeing RJH on the mercy role when eh's such a god on that Zen. On the otherhand, neptuno has pulled a better mercy than tobi (imo) and also boombox has his moments on zen as well. Keep in mind that this isn't focused on the support players. Fragi and Poko has insane dive potential and with that core and the DPS working together, it does look ever so slightly better than SD but that doesn't counter the God Zunba is in his role. However Miro just seems a little out of touch in my opinion and I have the same opinion as the caster in saying that we should see Kuki more. With the DPS, Although Fleta is the unicorn that everyone seeks, it's hard for him to compare with the aggressive playstyle of both ShadowBurn and Carpe, both legends on their own right. This match up is something I am really interested in watching and i pray that the other dps in SD can match up to fleta's carry.

Houstan Outlaws vs. Los Angeles Valiant
Another extremely hard one to predict as both teams are on the same level and equal on the standings, such that if this match up was played in stage one it would have serious implications in whoever makes it into playoffs. As both teams are equally matched i can't help but base this on their most recent results where HOU played london and LAV played Seoul, both teams winning their respective matches. Assuming both teams are playing their players in their best roles and best form i have finally decided that it's impossible to decide who's going to come out on top between the two teams and can't help but blame my lack of comprehension of high level OW gameplay. Starting from their tank line, Fate has been playing a more aggressive style compared to muma usually constantly found on the killfeed /popping off targets and finishing off squishies. With Envy close behind him they make serious space for So0n and silkthread of conquer their opponents and punish the slightest of mistakes. On the otherhand the combination of Muma and Coolmatt69 is the dream tankline if you're a support as most of the time you go absolutely untouched and don't have to worry about them dying all the time. the dps is hard to match up as you have your distinct carries in So0n and linkzr as well as Jake and Silkthread who are hard to match up, though i would slightly favour linkzr over So0n and Silkthread over Jake but it's all hard to tell. the support line up is also equally close but in this matter i believe that LAV have the better supports in Unk0e and KariV but the supports in HOU are not to be ignored.

Boston Uprising vs. Shanghai Dragons
Both teams had a lot of questions surrounding them at the beginning of the league and although I see SHD getting their first win sometime in future, the meteoric rise of the Uprising leaves SHD a tiny worm in the ground. I feel as if Boston is so strong right now that I seriously hope they make it to playoff and play off once again against the korean overlords NYXL who took on the uprising in the start of Stage 1 while BOS was getting their shit together. Not much else needed to say there.

Dallas Fuel vs. Florida Mayhem
the match up of 2017's best in NA vs. 2017's best in EU, both teams finding it difficult to stay relevent in OWL. this is a matchup just to see who rules the bottem end of the OWL standings (not really, that's happening in a few hours between LAG and DAL imo). i still think this would be difficult game to follow with all the random skirmishes going around but i believe Dallas will out skirmish the Mayhem.

I think there are plenty of really good female players in Overwatch it's just that the competition for the spots on the OWL is just extremely intense where even world renowned players such as AKM couldn't land a spot in the league. However, just like the Path to OWL video said they have to make or take part in a team and play through open division etc.

i bumped into this twitter page and they seem quite serious about going pro.
https://twitter.com/Venus_OW

!Claim ▶ Currently our rewards system is not in place but stay tuned to overwatchleague.com for details!

i think !claim is meant to work but it's broken. I got the above from a private message from moobot.