They changed the start time to 12pm EST as per Gillfrost

I really hope people will watch this video and have a change of heart about Contenders Season 0. I think they did a phenomenal job with the timeline they were given.

Hi Sideshow,

You're right about APEX, that does muddy the waters.

NA:

"Seeding was bust because it puts the quarterfinalists from day one above the winners from day two, ignoring the fact that it's single-elimination with enormous arms of the bracket"

hmm... Is IMT stronger than a full roster Selfless? YIKES beat IMT day 1 to get the 5-8th seed. RNG came first in group of "death". The one I fully concede to you is YGGP got into top 8 day 1 due to a disqualification on Tempo's part. I also concede to you that IMT definitely leveled up on their time between quals and groups, something that these tournaments cannot take into account.

I find it worthy to note that 5 teams made it into finals from day 1. 4 of which were top 4 that day. The other one that made it out was RNG who came 5-8th day 1. Can't argue that they shouldn't be higher seeded after their performance in group of death. The three teams that made it from day two were surprising to most but had brutal brackets the first day. EnVision had to play against LGE in top 16. TL had to play a renewed FaZe top 16. Immortals got skunked by YIKES! in top 16. Surprising, but roster changes etc etc.

The one other factor here is that YGGP qualified due to a DQ by Tempo on day 1. This also threw a wrench in the bracket as evidenced in groups.

Overall I truly believe the brackets were best case, the only real problem I have with it is slotting in C9 at 9th seed. This caused the huge fuck up. I truly believe C9 should have competed in qualifiers. I'm sure they knew well in advance but decided to take the handout from Blizz instead of playing through it like Hammers (I understand their schedule situation but if Hammers can do it, so could C9).

TL;DR: There were 3 serious faults with seeding: YGGP getting into top 8 day 1 due to a disqualification. C9 being handed a 9th seed without playing for it. Selfless getting nerfed. This directly affected 3 of 4 group stage brackets. Overall based on performance, the teams that made it into playoffs matched pretty accurately with the brackets from day 1 and 2 in qualifiers.

Top 8 teams based on seed in qualifiers for visual aid:
1 LG
2 Faze
3/4 Kung
3/4 FNRGFE
5-8 RNG
10 IMT
13-16 EnVision Outlier -> Why? YGGP seed. Win against TO when it mattered.
13-16 TL Outlier -> Why? Selfless nerf, slight re-org looking good after some practice.

Fixable: Switch C9 with YGGP -> Why? There is objectively no reason to do this and that is why it was not done.

Schedule still sucked ass for viewers. They need to fix that portion.

Out of interest, how would you have seeded the top 8 teams from each day in order to remedy this? Where would you seed C9?

EU:

Top 8 day one:
1 Eunited
2 Misfits
3/4 Team Singularity
3/4 Movistar Riders
5-8 123
5-8 Lazer Kittenz
5-8 Vivi's Adventure
5-8 Bazooka Puppiez

Playoffs:
1 Eunited
2 Misfits
3/4 Team Singularity
5-8 123
5-8 Lazer Kittenz
5-8 Vivi's Adventure
5-8 Bazooka Puppiez
13-16 RIP Outlier -> Why? RiP lost the ninja name.

Pretty damn accurate when you don't manipulate seeding. There are also less quality teams in EU. Sorry EU, I love you.

Edit: Added Selfless as a fault in seeding.

"Qualifiers were successful in terms of turnout, but had a suboptimal ruleset—teams entered a gauntlet without any seeding at all, forced to compete for a top 8 spot in order to progress through the tournament."

This is bugging me Harsha, please look at the brackets again. There is seeding in the bracket, even first day. I didn't see any Immortals vs CLG in top 256, and neither did you. Priority seeding was also given to top 16 for day 2. Good teams would meet at top 32 and as expected most met in Top 16.

"Cloud9 took a forced 9th seed, creating a "group of death" situation in which Group D was significantly more difficult than any other."

If you are arguing here that C9 shouldn't have received special treatment, I completely agree with you. However if you are simply arguing that Group D is a Group of Death, look at any Apex Tournament. This is statistically probable to occur. On top of that, they used the most objective method in creating the groups: seeding. Changing it would be unfair and dishonest. This means currently, RNG and Kungarna are better teams. C9 just isn't the team everyone thinks they should be, which has been proven a multitude of times.

I agree with you about both the times for games and the number of games streamed. It was upsetting but also understandable in this format. 24 sets of 4 maps over 2 days is an outrageous amount of Overwatch (FOR EACH REGION). The only reasonable way to fix this would be stretch it over at least a month in order to get the stream time you are looking for which sounds like it will not fit their schedule.

ConnorJ, the most underrated player in NA

I love how you're in on this spice

MyKl and his team are confident in the win. Look at all of us hyping the game up. It's good entertainment regardless of the manner it was presented.

ConnorJ bringing the true Canadian way to EnVision. Sorry.

I really hate how Team Canada just seemed to not try at all. Embarrassing.

Edit: I found out about their FPS and the sponsorship stuff. My bad.

Team Canada:

Mangachu
Surefour
Agilities
xQc
Roolf
Joemeister/phaz/verbo (I would pick Joe)

NA 'D'eath group

They can vote for themselves and play. Check out http://wiki.teamliquid.net/overwatch/Category:Canadian_Players for the talent in Canada and hope that they pick the right team.

Great question and interesting answers.

I believe the standings currently are:

1. Renegades (4-0) - (8-0)
2. Immortals (3-0) - (6-2)
3. Luminosity (2-2) - (5-5)
4. Kungarna (1-2) - (4-4)
5. Team Liquid (1-2) - (3-4)
6. Complexity (1-2) - (3-5)
7. Faze Clan (1-2) - (2-5)
8. Citizen 7 (0-3) - (0-6)

Legend:
Team name (Set count) - (Game count)

Since this is a round robin, game wins inside of sets matter if there are ties.

Please refer to https://smash.gg/tournament/winter-premiere-open-play/events/group-play-round-of-8/brackets