I know they need some kind of work visa, but not sure how process does really work, if London/Paris/Toronto/Vancouver/Seoul or China teams come to visit and they have signed new player.

If Ball is what your team wants to play then it's probably good to be ball one-trick.

Second Wind is amazing how they always perform even with all the roster changes, but I have to agree with that Atlanta have only Sugarfree and Saucy (or maybe Perfact too?) left from their dominant 2019 roster so I don't know how highly we should be rating Atlanta compared to their last year performance.

I think this is also what basically everyone forgets... like Shanghai was trash Season 1 and then suddenly people are like they still are as much trash as in Season 1, when Season 2 starts with totally new roster, but when they won some decent teams etc.. and suddenly people are losing their marbles that this trash 0-40 team wins a game.

It's kinda silly how late some of the roster/staff changes are being announced for teams/league.

Although I am curious, if NA team picks up KR or EU player can they get him to play for them basically next weekend? Since technically you don't need (or do you?) long term visa for 1 or 2 weekends? Like, if they travel to KR/China or London/Paris/Canada also.

Honestly I have no clue how that visa process goes. Just kind of wondering how does mid-season pick ups work with all this travelling ..

Some teams were just playing musical chair game, but question remains, if anyone have won it yet.

I have to agree that some teams and their rosters seems just very odd. Not very role is filled with multiple talented stars though. Trying to name 20 Main Tanks is much harder than 20 Hitscans from all players that would deserve to be in OWL.

Might be. I do like the idea, if more people does appearances couple times a year like Goldenboy did last year. As long as they have certain passion in their casting or desk role.

Wonder, if he does couple Homestands as his wording leaves door open for that.

Also Sideshow seems to have said they would be having something like 8-9 weekends offs from casting so at least there's some "visitor casters" or there's more than 4 caster duos.

If someone really watched OWL only, because of certain person casting or being on desk... I don't know, what they were doing rest of the season. So far I do like new casters though so not too sad about changes.

It's not really easy to create opinion about all these talent changes (people leaving or joining) as they haven't shared us more details how it's going to be working out with casters/desk with all these different homestands every weekend. Does Uber/MrX for example travel whole season in NA East Coast Homestands weekly basis or do they get some week offs to do some normal life stuff or, what's the deal? Living on a road for 6 months is probably not, what most people would want to do.

I don't know how much does Homestands boost viewership since we are not in LA every weekend anymore. Probably more EU people are able to watch most East Coast games, but not sure do we lose some viewership from some other region. It's still going to be like last two years, when more people tune in for first few weeks/months to see, which teams are bad/good and which heroes are being played.

Season 3 was ultimate test for OWL not first two seasons. If teams gets to sell all their Homestands tickets they are probably happy. Not sure, where online viewership (all platforms) should be. It will be more interesting to see, if there's huge difference in viewership based on, which team is hosting.

This is quote from his twitlonger: "Envy has decided they wanted to focus on developing young NA talent in my role".

Not sure, what's with signing Taimou into DPS though.

That's, what it looks like since is they would banking on Sparkle for their last 10 games + playoffs... that would be silly.

Yeah it's not really one-to-one comparable OWL to NBA. Might see some upsets from teams that gets to stay in their location (Justice) vs teams that travel a lot long distances.

What's the rule for this season for number of games in OWL they can play without becoming uneligible for Contenders? Same than last year or did they change it?

Think it was in Numlocked's twilonger that Envy would be focusing on young NA talent instead. Which makes some sense, but also kinda blows since it feels like OWL/Contenders spots are practically given only to people under 20.

I believe, if this teams won't be in bottom-5 everyone will be surprised. You can argue all you want, if they are better than 3-5 Atlantic teams, but since it's 18 games vs Pacific teams and 10 vs Atlantic teams Valiant can't even beat Boston twice :P like Atlantic teams can.

But to be fair... I don't have a clue about half of the players (never heard or just not seen much in Contenders) so I can't really judge them too hardly yet. Low expectations towards Valiant, but every team still have to play all those 28 games.

I think some people are just staring at number 76 000, because it's big. Yeah sure there's quite a few flights between Europe and NA or Asia and NA in that number, but it's not like they play every 2-3 days like they do in most American sports leagues (NBA; NHL etc). Like sure flying to China takes quite a few miles, but teams are also staying there somewhat 2-3 Homestands? One long flight one way shouldn't be a big deal, if team actually gets to stay in nearby areas for couple weeks.

I would worry more, if teams would have to travel long distances weekly basis.

You were 1 day too early.

Well taken on, what Jake said on stream some weeks ago: That Homestands in China will be casted from LA. I wonder, if we end up having like Asia/West NA being done totally from LA studio for desk section (NA West Homestands would still be at location) and NA East + London would be done with casting done at location (Paris would have french casting in location).

Technically 4 (2 + 2) caster duos and 3 desk duos (host + 2 analyst) should be enough for each Homestand, if we are thinking of English broadcast. But with all the travel do really expect same people to travel for 6 months without any bigger breaks?

Like, if OWL is ultimate goal for players and you are 30 years old it's kind of hard to believe in getting to OWL unless you have been signed already. Just by looking, what ages players are that teams sign... it's 17-20 year olds.

It's kinda shame how you are already at graveyard, if you are like 25 and not in OWL.

Actually I do wonder how much of time there even is for analysis while Homestands since there's lots of Homestands with only 2 games per day. As you could imagine each organizing team probably wants to have some extra stuff for the crowd between the matches.

Well he did underperform (based on expectations from 2017 World Cup). So I don't know really know were everyone blind while watching him playing Contenders 2018 as he didn't really deliver anything while XL2 (mixed roster, but that's pretty poor excuse).

I don't know, when people say X player should or should not be in OWL I just start thinking 20-40 players for that position (20 starters + 20 bench) and sure I could see Flower being at least a bench player somewhere. He did look kinda okay'ish Stage 4, but not really a player you would put all your hopes on to lead you into a win the League.

It's pretty hard to think 40 or even 20 names for any single position.. when in fact you need need to consider nationality/language skills for given player as currently in the League we have 1 full Chinese teams, 7 teams mostly Koreans (+1 Chinese player) and that leaves 12 mixed teams, but certain positions are still heavily Korean influenced. Just stating a fact :)

It sounds more like that there's possibly visiting host(s) for quite a few homestands instead of just one regular host.

I think it's kind of expected to see some changes in OWL talent/crew now that they don't play in LA for 8 months, but keep changing cities week to week. It's not like they can go home after each Homestand now. Sure I don't think same casters will be running the show every week for whole season. Will be interesting to see though how it works out.

Sure Monte and others have their reasons for leaving, but staying on the road is just not for everyone.

I did like Monte though. Liked the way he was making fun of teams etc. roasting Outlaws and stuff like that.

I don't even know, what they want to do at the moment. I'm actually curious to see, which teams won't be biggest fan favorites at their own homestands (based on how much crowd cheers for each team while games). I do have couple teams in my mind, but I don't remember, which teams attend on each homestand so can't tell yet.

It would be pretty hilarious though, if (lets say) London (for this case) plays at their homestand vs Paris/Toronto/Shock/Gladiators (they play these 4 games at their homestand) and crowd would want away team to win. This of course applies to any other team with their own homestand. I don't know though does any of these 4 teams really appeal more into British crowd. Paris have 2 brits, but well it's France and England teams so who knows.

Either someone here is hidden gem and everyone fall in love with this team or it's just list of nobodies. Interested to see, which team gets biggest applauds while London homestands (don't remember, which teams even play there or when was the events)

One thing is certain that this team was not build for marketing in mind. Not gonna lie... didn't care Season 1 London... started to grow into them a little Season 2, but now back to zero :)

I'm not really sold with Gladiators DPS line-up and Gladiators being Contender for Shock.

Thank god games are not won by, which team has more famous players. So lets just wait till February :)

Is Uprising Academy still gonna be in Toronto or will they plan to move Academy to Boston area (where they are building their own training center for OWL team)? Or is that simply out of question, because of difficulties of getting visas for Contenders players?

Sure I get the point getting him with the team to build synergy, but Paris plays 16 games before Sparkle even turns 18. On the day he turns 18 Paris have their 17th game of the season, which is probably first game he is eligible? So Sparkle is not eligible for 16 games for sure, but could possibly be playing 12 games.

Although like you said there's going to be travel and stuff so not 100% sure of their travel route, where it would even make sense to keep some players in their home base (presumable Paris or some NA East Coast city?) and play Contenders or something like that.

Keeping Sparkle on bench for 4 months for doing nothing is probably not very useful unless Paris does keep 12 players with them whole season for internal scrims, but by the looks of it Paris is going for 12 man roster so it might make some sense. But it's pretty sure that Sparkle wouldn't be scrimming in Team-A vs other teams until he is near eligible.

Like, what else would Sparkle do until June? (His birthday was late May or early June as far as I remember?)

Wonder how they split their talent team into two. I just hope wouldn't miss someone like UberX totally, if they would be casting in Asia and West Coast whole season.

Well something had to still happen in Outlaws and guess this was one of those things, what was coming.

Better question is why wouldn't you support your only Australian in whatever League? I do support Finns whatever team they play, but them leaving or getting traded doesn't necessary mean I start hating the team.

I can give you NHL example since that's only North American League, where Finns used to play in 90s or 2000s. Teemu Selänne played in Anaheim Ducks sure it made me create bigger emotions towards the club nowadays I don't think they really have any Finns worth noting that gets to play in big stage. Another example is Saku Koivu with Montreal Canadiens as far as I can remember I was a fan (I don't even remember why, but might have been Patrick Roy) before he joined Canadiens and to be fair I have remained fan of Canadiens even after he left them and went to Ducks. What does this show? I was a real Canadiens fan and slightly fake Ducks fan.

Middle of the pack is probably toughest to rate as after Top teams (3-5 teams) there's going to be like 8-10 teams who will be pretty even based on win-lose record.

I am not even sure is 2 Off-Tank players (Fury/Poko) weird anymore, if we can see them both being played at same time as some tank or support heroes are not clearly classified as for one role.

Teams probably have much less use for Academy team, while they are on a road and they need a scrim partner and, if they have something, what they don't want to show to their opponents yet. As it seems like quite a few teams have chosen to go for 12-man roster, which is probably the better choice, if you plan to have 2 rosters just for internal scrims.

Sure Academy is still good option for those teams that know how to run it "successfully", -which is not same as profitable- like Atlanta, Boston etc. Don't think teams will run academy teams in the future unless they have some young talent there waiting for turning into 18 unless Contenders becomes profitable for at least upper half of Contenders teams. I don't think pumping more money into it is solution (Fortnite level money) even it does need more money, but it doesn't create healthy eco-system for long term.

Like any team for what ever reason, but if you are not really a fan for given team after some roster changes, you were never really a fan of that given team.

What story do you expect them to have, if they were made just for last season. Titans obviously didn't want all of them a year ago (which was reported somewhere), but Runaway players/management (who ever) didn't accept a deal unless everyone gets picked up. That should raise a alarm for some people. Surely someone is not happy in that kind of situation. Imagine, if LeBron James would have said that he only joins Lakers, if Lakers picks up also his teammates from Cleveland LOL. Just rename to LA Cavaliers then.

That's like saying Bumper is godlike Orisa since he was on bench for playoffs and didn't play. First you are saying changing playstyle is so, but no they were just shit, because X and Y players were shit in that setup. And suddenly we have 18 teams with bad players and only 2 teams with good players. Not even 20 good players in OWL with that logic.

So you did only like Runaway not Titans, gotcha!

Healthy fanbase, which doesn't actually like the team, but likes the other team, which isn't the actual team they are playing, GG. And people still questioning why their management is breaking up the roster. I don't know it just sounds so stupid in head, when I think how people are Titans fans only because they are "Runaway" even though they are Titans...and now they are not Titans fans, because they are not "Runaway" anymore as not full roster remains. So are we talking of Titans or Runaway again I don't know I got lost in Wolf's monology while TItans or was it Runaway game?

If players could make all the roster chances they should be also investing money into that :). It's pretty silly, when players make demands for package deals for teams that "sign us all or none".

Is it a good or bad move by Titans to make these roster changes? Dunno, I rather would see them have fans who support Titans because they are Titans. It was pretty boring to listen how often Runaway was mentioned in broadcast while Titans game...

So basically you are Runaway fan not Titans fan.

If it's not so hard to change playstyle, why did 18 teams suck at Goats :P

Being a pro player doesn't mean you can adapt to different kind of situation in game though. There was nothing good in Bumper's playstyle anymore in later on in Stage 2 or 3 as he was constantly being punished for his flanks. Did you see two or three different kind of playstyles by Bumper? With more than one of them being effective? I would say no, but then again I didn't really watch that many Vancouver games later on.

Although some of the Stage 1 or 2 maybe even Stage 3 games with Goats Vancouver vs half the League... are pretty pointless, when basically only Titans and Shock were able to play Goats properly. Like, if Bumper did go all aggro vs Washington/Florida and stomped everything... does that make Bumper good player? Does that make anyone good player? No That's also one reason why most of the season stats for Titans/Shock players are pretty irrelevant, when they were only 2 decent Goats teams. To be fair I would only rate Shock vs Titans games toy to rate any Titans or Shock player performance until Stage 3.

If I am assuming certain playstyle won't work in (whatever meta comes) next meta it's same as you are assuming it will work though. -flips a coin- Also I am not assuming I am just saying he has one dimensional playstyle.

Some people, who look good while getting pocketed by their teammates are just bad, when they have to pocket their teammates.

Makes more sense then. Both of them are still pretty good.

How could you tell, maybe he goes to his 5th team at the end of March and 6th team in May and before deadline back to Vancouver? :D

People say that's the only way Bumper could play though. Doesn't that make him liability in different kind of meta?

If you think it from Vancouver Titans management/owners perspective. Spend 50 million dollars into a league spot name your team as a Vancouver Titans and still half the people call their team "Runaway". I can say I wouldn't be happy with such thing as owner. Like how often we had casters in OWL say "Runaway" while Titans game? Rewatch the VoDs and use it for a drinking game. I doubt anyone survive some of the early Vancouver games from Season 2.

Like how many Titans fans do like Titans, because they were ex-Runaway roster? and how many do like them, because they are Vancouver based team? or for some other reasons?

Bumper is not Top-10 Main Tank though. Could they have kept him as backup, sure why not, but it's not players who should be making roster decisions (as, if players wanted Bumper to stay, but management seemingly didn't want to keep him), when it's a million dollars business.

Comparing Main Tank and Flex Support in sense of who is better is not very accurate though :P Unless your argument is based on how high each of them ranks in their own role, like probably I can't name 5 MT's who are better than Fissure, but I could name 5 Flex Supports that are better than Unkoe.

Any guesses in which team Fissure is by the end of the year?

I do agree with some of those names being pretty good choices, but originally I also meant that some of those other Main Tanks are probably taken, but not necessary announced yet by their new team. As there's still surprisingly many teams without official roster announcements.

I don't remember anymore, but was NoSmite free agent or did Paris buy his contract? Like, if there was rumor about Paris wanting to trade for OGE (or was it someone else), but they lost the bid to Gladiators.

It doesn't look Top-6 (Playoffs) team, but the heck I know, when I have zero clue about half of these players. Probably in my head I would consider them mid-table team, but then again there's like 10 mid-table teams.

Seems 9, if I can count correctly.

I believe Void is not with the team anymore. At least he is not in the 8 player list so far they have officially announce. Wasn't Void rumored to join some other team anyways?