Better question would have been, who would you pick then? I can't really think many options for Main Tank as most Main Tanks from Contenders haven't really shined after they got picked up to OWL.

Dominating Contenders (even, if it's Korean) doesn't mean much, if there's only handful of teams that can even compete with you and most of them are not even that good.

I think it's fair to criticize western based teams (at least that's, what I do) for picking full KR rosters, but this isn't even that bad yet with 4 KR as only as it really doesn't turn into 6 KR players starters and non-KR permabenched. Although it comes more into that those players needs to show to their fans that they actually want to be in that team.

Of course Eternal has these 2 KR players who turn 18 while season 3. So it makes their roster roulette slightly different for first half of the season.

True, but there's not much difference being 17th or 13th. Either you go all in for title or you just be happy with your 7th, 10th, 13th or 17th place and watch playoffs at home.

Would be actually nice to see some graph about, which Contenders/Academy team has been best talent wise that have gotten into OWL and succeeded also in OWL.

As of now there's only couple teams in OWL that seems to actually scouting actively players and most of the teams just leeching top talent from KR Contenders teams or buying talent from other OWL teams. Neither is a bad thing, but there's not enough talent for 20 teams to just picking totally new player for same role, like 20 new main tanks. Just saying not every team can build their roster with same mentality, Would love to see more of Boston kind of thing though, where they pick up low-profile Contenders players and most of them end up being at least decent, if not better.

Can't really expect same team to blow up whole roster every year to just test out new talent in OWL... well unless you are Boston.

Any idea, how fluent English Meko speaks? I assume it can't be terrible since he is joining mixed roster, but never know of these Koreans, when 90% of them speaks only Korean in every interview I see related to OWL.

Surely Meko is Top-10 or Top-5 Off-Tank (as he is more than Dva 1-trick like some of the other off-tanks are) in the League/World.

At least they are trying to be something else than bland team like Florida S2.

In perfect reality everyone would use mixed rosters.

It's called "team identify". Do you want to be another faceless team, which nobody remembers as all your (supposed) fans can't follow their players, when none of them interact publicly (interviews, streams etc) with the language fans would understand. Nothing wrong with what ever way teams want to go, but how boring it would be, if every team would be just made the same way?

I could talk endlessly how I see some teams are build around few core values, which identifies their team. Is there a wrong way to do it? No, but it just shows, what kind of team owners want.

Like for example I simply can't imagine Paris not having a single french player in their roster as long as there is french players in the League.

I can see NYXL still being good, but I wouldn't be surprised, if they drop couple spots in standings based on looking, what other teams have been doing so far.

Hard to really say too much about Gladiators DPS line-up until they announce more than 1 player. It will be interesting to see though how he (or any other player, who changed teams) does in different team environment.

I'm more interested to see how many players each team signs and, if there can be seen some kind of rotation in plans or are they just bench warmers for whole season. Doesn't seem to be more than 8 or 9 players for most teams so far, but always good to leave some room for later pickups to fill the gaps I guess.

Birdring as a starter without any backups? I would be slightly worried in that case, but will have to see, which other DPS players they will sign. Don't get me wrong surely Birdring is good, when he is in form, but more questions than answers, if they would go only wtih Birdring and one more DPS.

Well surely he is better in comms than most of those Koreans who won't talk a word of English :)) As far as I have understood Main Support has been pretty talkative role in the past at least, maybe it is slightly different with each meta, but someone has to talk all that basic stuff "clearly" so everyone can understand the plan.

But it's still hard to say who is good in comms like you said Fusions was the guy who talked a lot while Goats in Boston, but not even Fusions can see everything he needs to see, if no one gives him that information, what he does not see while holding that Rein shield somewhere in the front line.

About those Mercy deaths you never know, if Crusty (Huk or who ever was making their strats) wanted him to do risky plays as Mercy -going for suicide ress-, which might result into something. I don't really remember Season 1 anymore, but would have to look at some of the games to see, if there was greater purpose in some of those deaths he had.

Lucio Boops are flashy plays, but getting environmental kills won't really make anyone 'good'. Maybe he is defensive Lucio, but no clue really. Didn't watch that many Boston games towards the end of Season 2.

Think Roky was two-way.

Don't think he is as bad as you make him sound like, but I could probably name 5 "better" (probably I just like some other players more) options. Still probably Top-10 western Main Support. Probably not in Top-20, if counting all Koreans too, but how many of those Koreans can do comms in mixed roster though?

Well we look at couple previous World Cups and by looking some of the "top teams" we could argue about, if they were at BlizzCon/Qualifiers just for having fun compared to some other teams that were trying to make perfect rosters and everything.

Personally I would prefer World Cup to be "once in a lifetime" experience for players so it wouldn't always be just same players playing every year. I do understand that some countries do not really have options to pick other than same players every year to be even competent. But teams like Canada or USA have had same players for 2-3 years now.

Think team France was build this year how I would like to see World Cup work for the future years: 1 star player (Soon), 2 OWL players (Soon, HyP) and 5 Contenders players. Previous years France was just bringing old-Rogue roster though so nice to see some changes there.

Well yeah, but this was mostly just thinking about this World Cup and. what kind of rosters KR has normally build for previous World Cup.

As normally you don't see any other "top country" bringing 3+ players from same team (as most top players from these countries are not playing in same teams in OWL)

Maybe. I mean being real I would say rest of the world has catch up, where as South Korea has probably stayed on same level (which is still very high).

Just doesn't seem like current South Korea has much team synergy (as all of them are basically from different teams). So they are basically starting at same level than most of the countries, where they won't bring nearly full team to represent their nation, but pick up individuals for each roles.

Would have loved to see Wolf reaction camera for this one.

Or maybe some Koreans don't know how to play with other Koreans than with whom they have played for years.

Assuming it would be something like 2 Tanks, 1 DPS and 2 Supports, if 5 new at the same time. Wonder though, if they would change to releasing multiple(2) heroes at once (maybe just like twice per year) instead of releasing 1 hero 3 times a year.

Is this actually first time South Korea team is not build on previous synergy? As last years there was always like 3-4 players from same team.

Now there's like 2 Shock players and then 1 player at max from other teams, where as previous years it was like NYXL fielding 3-4 players and then filling the caps.

You can't really tell, if it fixes or not problems you called. I wouldn't be surprised, if OW2 would include major balance patch into PvP system as there's supposed to be multiple new heroes with launch. No idea, if Echo comes into current Overwatch or will it have to wait for OW2 as well like Sojourn was said to be waiting with other multiple heroes.

I think that shows more in countries, which have only 1-2 teams. Does it have to be full Canadian etc roster? Of course not, but it kind of shows something (you decide what it shows), when team is willing to get some of the top talent from their country to represent their team.

I would find it funny, if there would be 2 Canadian team (that was the case for start of Season 2, but it was different situation as a lot of people were already signed to other teams by the time) without any Canadians, but some random team from USA would be fielding multiple Canadians (there was at max 1 Canadian per team).

I wouldn't say anything in that is really shocking. If they wanted to make PvE mode/missions they needed different game or mode, where they wouldn't need to worry about balance issues. I'm sure people can remember some of those Archives missions how much different they were each year, when heroes used in mission got either buffed or nerfed for PvP.

Would love to see multiple new heroes (3-6 heroes, 1-2 each role) added into (both) game(s), when this PvE part of the game goes live. New map type well I don't know what it is like so will see.

That's a good point, but I would assume since New York Mets owner owns NYXL Pine's salary is pocket money for him, if Pine would have been released. Like we are not talking about millions here only something like 100-200k possibly.

Well Israel takes part in most EU-qualifiers in traditional sports.

It's one factor. It's not about what team wants, it's also about if player is fine about being a bench player.

There's multiple factors to consider why Pine remains and Flower goes.

Which one of them is happy to bench 75% of the time and play 25% of the time? Since SBB and Libero or even Nenne seems to be their first picks. Some people are happy with being bench and play only a little, but some won't be.

Contract won't stop getting traded :)

If you don't win the title you have to improve the team somehow, but not really sure, what NYXL staff sees as their weak spot. Same roster didn't win for two years so kind of expected to see some changes, but can't really say I would have expected to see Meko leaving. Flower getting dropped isn't that huge surprise based on his performance over the year, which was "okay", but everyone will just remember World CUp 2017.

So why World Cup 2017 standards his season was zero.

Well that's partly of the issue that most of the top EU-talent gets poached to NA Contenders, but would say that 5-10 EU Contenders 2019 Season 2 players should be better options than some of the players from OWL Season 2.

Of course reality in EU is that only 2-3 teams have been solid each Contenders season. If you already stomp every other team in EU how do you get better though? It's more likely that other teams will catch up on you.

I don't know why would they want Surefour, if they have Logix? Sure more Canadian presence in team, which will please the (local) fans and they might feel more attached to the team and attend in Homestands.

Would hope more teams to create their own identity with different kind of roster or branding choices so we won't just end up with 15-20 teams which look exactly the same.

Wonder, which is the biggest reason for it: Resources, Lack of Competition or Coaching/Player Skill.

Well obviously whole Justice team did look better in Stage 4, but to be fair only Corey and Stratus had clearly better performance vs their Goats performance.

Wonder how much this was about him being so hyped up since World Cup 2017 and not able to deliver expectations 2 years later same kind of performances? Or is this just about giving him a chance to play somewhere else as NYXL wouldn't be really stupid to give up on Libero or SBB. Would be surprised, if we won't see him in OWL 2020.

Had to be one of the three Flower, Pine or Nenne, who would be dropped (or change role).

I'm actually interested to see, how much players who are being released or being Free Agent will change teams, if they still remain in OWL. Think my original though some months ago was out of 200 players who played in Season 2, maybe 150 would remain in the League (not sure how many would actually change teams), but some players rightfully based on their performance and some sadly for other reasons will not see Season 3 in OWL.

Interesting to see, if Defiant make some other changes. Would assume Logix and Neko are there to stay, but would like to say Mangachu too, but already forgot how did he perform while Defiant was dumpster fire last part of the season.

I kind of understand dropping most of the Korean players since I don't think many of them really made an impact.

And really do like, if another team goes for more evenly mixed roster.

Same patch than OWL Stage 4 as far as I remember the announcement. So 2-2-2.

Imagine full holding NYXL in three maps... lol

Boston's season is over they may aswell prepare for Season 3 and see who is worth keeping.

I remember, when Philly always won these Map 5's, but that's just a memory now..

I don't think Valiant has luxury to experiment who is better Zen anymore at this point of season as Valiant needs to go 4-3 or 5-2 to even have a shot at getting to Play-In Tournament Since it's not granted that Zen is 100% picked and KariV took starting spot by playing Zen in Stage 2 I believe?

A bit same for me.

And I primarily mean is there really going to be more diversity between heroes than before, if 1 DPS player plays 3 different heroes, but no one else switches anything for new comp that's not really what I would call diversity. Of course they have half a year to make heroes balanced for next season based on the data they gather from OWL/Contenders/World Cup/Ranked. Would be sweet, if everyone would be "forced" to play at least 2 preferably 3 different heroes frequently instead of that one hero being 90% pickrate.

Think I could be satisfied with 60% pickrate for some heroes to call it good meta.

Why create unique strategy with X heroes, if you won't even be able to use them? You are not meant to be stubborn and play with that X hero whole game, if it doesn't work.

You are just using very weak comparison and you probably know it, but think about this: MOBAs (Dota2/LoL) have over 100 heroes, where as Overwatch currently stands at 30. Lets do Double/Triple ban for OW too then, if you say 30 heroes is enough so why not just reduce them to 26 or 24? Ban 6 tanks, no problem just play that 1 remaining tank.

Also you clearly didn't read word "SUBSTITUTE". Why have subs, if you don't even know, which heroes would be banned? And since that system would have to be in ranked too so good luck, if you really want to think it would currently work for OW.

Don't think there's any other money prizes than Top-8 Stage Playoffs (x3) and Top-8 Season Playoffs at least from League.

Exactly. If Justice would just "throw" Stage 4 by not doing any changes, what do you think it would affect to their PR value for next year and home games? Local fans want to see "hope" in their home otherwise they wouldn't show up to home games, if their team is total trash and owners won't care enough to improve their team in time.

It's a little bit sad how badly most of the Atlantic teams are doing. As last 6 teams in standings are from Atlantic division, but also London and Philly (2nd and 3rd in division) are currently not that good.

It's actually interesting to see how Stage 4 turns out. As of course current Top-9 in standings looks be certain to make Top-12 spots, but remaining 3 spots to be battled between next 9 teams (theoretically based on looking at their schedules in Stage 4). Only Justice and Mayhem totally out of the picture.

Not sure how much "other match" without home team would interest local fans, but I do agree that only one match (which could be just 1 hour) is pretty short as a event unless they plan to have some other filler stuff for people attending.

Although scheduling will likely be easier (if they plan to keep 4 matches per day or even more depending how widely they would play) as imagine, if day starts with Paris vs Team A in Paris and after that London vs Team B in London in "prime time" for EU. After that there's chance to have couple games at NA East Coast and even after that few games at West Coast. There's also China/Korea after that. Technically it could go like that, but probably has some problems.

My point was just that time zones makes it pretty smooth (for Twitch or other online viewers) without interfering too much with local times and putting some teams to play at terrible time (for example Wednesday 3pm in LA time as Blizzard Arena is pretty often quite empty on early weekdays).

How many of them were actually flexible in their own role though? And by flexible I mean more than 1-trick Genji, Tracer, Widow, Winston, Lucio or just name a hero.

As long as it wouldn't be like in CS:GO., where you could just be playing Dust2, Sure there's 20 maps by now (or is it 19?) so it's hard to know all the maps that well with different heroes.

Personally I would prefer more of map rotation done by Blizzard for each week or what ever would be the timeline.