Well is every map only dive better then?

Only players I could see Fusion taking from their Academy are Elk or Zacharee for next season, but not sure which players they would release/trade then. Alarm and Whoru are not eligible yet for next season so that makes it easy decision. Beasthalo and Bernar are probably fine tanks (I don't really know their playstyle too well), but I just don't see them replacing SADO, Hotba or Poko.

Fragi, Snillo or Shadowburn getting traded might be the case. Dayfly and Joemeister might get to do something else too. But it's hard to know, if Joemeister was signed as bench player for in house scrims. But that also goes for other players we don't really know who is "fine" being just a sub, which gets to play maybe 5 matches a season.

But then again, if you bring in Elk or Zacharee would they be just subs? Could they get to be starter somewhere else? Are they starter quality players? Would they be fine being just a subs or would they want to be starters?

I only have on question: When can teams actually do trades? In October while signing window? Or is it possible like they talk with other teams lets say in August and say "we extend X player contract, if you extend that Y player contract and we trade in October". Is it possible to deal like that? Like they both could just release players, but expansion teams might sign them so just wondering.

Seems pretty much on point, what possibly happens with some players.

NYXL will be interesting though since, if they bring Flower(Nanohana) and/or Nenne into OWL they really need to drop/trade/sell someone from SBB, Libero or Pine.

If there's about 130 players in the League at the moment I was thinking one day that maybe about 20 gets dropped, about 20 changes teams and rest obviously stay with their teams. Although when there's additional 6 teams with possible 12 man rosters coming up. But then again there's not going to be any western player playing in Asia (China/Korea/Pacific) based teams

Desk is filled with best and worst predictions :D

I believe Bren got 2/5 (Both London winning series in each round) and Sideshow 0/5. Where as Crumbz and Reinforce got 1/5 each (Believe they were right about Philly winning 2nd NYXL match).

Was funny to watch Boombox trying to roast Sideshow about those predictions going all wrong for him in some Philly video and then Sideshow just said replied "I'm gonna go with Philly" and Boombox ran way :D

So basically 6 slots will be like:

Asia Pacific: Guangzhou and 2nd for Korea, Thailand or Australia?
Europe: Paris and 2nd slot most likely Berlin?
North America: Both from US? Chigago and Seattle? Or maybe Canadian city?

Probably Blizzard will agree with some conflicts in timeline and try to fix/change some of them for next year, but will be interesting to see how they try to build up OWL Season 2 along with Contenders + World Cup into ecosystem for 2019.

For future I could see that Contenders Finals or even whole Playoffs could be played on European OWL teams arenas or something like that, when OWL actually have home and away games.

I think EU, NA and Pacific Finals on World Cup event has couple obvious reasons why Contenders Final. Not saying ideal, but still.

1) World Cup Qualifiers will likely get much higher viewership than single Contenders LAN Finals so maybe it's for trying to market Contenders for wider audience.

2) Well suppose that, if there would be Contenders Finals at the same time than World Cup Qualifier... I think we all can guess, which gets more viewers.

3) Not having semifinals on LAN is a bit of a letdown though. This is probably just a special snowflake Contenders Season since there's only World Cup Qualifiers once a year.

Wonder why though. I can think of few reasons and well either he did something "not acceptable" or some personal reason.

Probably.

But funny part is people always said Mercy is easy hero to play before OWL and then you start watching OWL Stage 1 and all of these old Lucio mains playing Mercy and gosh how bad they were :D Just saying.

In all seriousness I would say it would be fresh, if meta would keep changing every 6 months or so (viewers perspective), but would prefer something similar than OWL Stage 4 meta in Gibraltar. That was fun to watch.

Zarya and Hanzo grav/dragon is pretty boring to watch though.... if it's like every fight either side for whole map....

Did they just announce the change for Contenders roster size being capped at 8?

Shock wins 3-2..... well because reasons...

At least first I just though Philly is just bad in King's Row at the moment, but then they lost Hanamura like totally. Although you can't blame SADO (Rein) for getting smashed by Mickie (Brigitte Shield Bash), which was followed by OGE (Rein Shatter). That was just brutal, but I really don't get why Philly didn't use Brigitte at all?

First of all I do understand why they want to play SADO (and HOTBA) instead of Fragi and Poko and keep tank duos separated. SADO/HOTBA are good players maybe even better than Fragi/Poko as a duo, but as Fragi/Poko played nearly all 30 games together it's okay to give some rest for them and give game time for SADO/HOTBA now that SADO is available. But now on I think Philly really needs to go with best squad in each map now on as next week looks very tough. Although, if Philly wants to make season playoffs they really need to win Seoul and Houston later on this stage.

Next week could easily be Philly 0-2 (NYXL and Glads), Houston 2-0 and Seoul 2-0 (They both play Florida and Shanghai)

Philly was just awful, but Hanamura was just... like wtf. Their defense was like.... Hotba goes alone to contest the point, but no one helps him in 1v4 fight or what with Brigitte on point? If Hotba wouldn't have gone to point Dallas would have got even faster so you can't really call stuff like that "feeding", but I'm still stunned a bit so I don't remember much of that match anymore

I don't really know, what kind of scenario is needed for Boston to drop out of Top-6. But here goes for nothing:

Remaining games for Stage 4

(22 wins) Boston plays vs. Valiant, London, Shock, Seoul, Shanghai, NYXL and Florida
(21 wins) London plays vs. Seoul, Boston, Dallas, Valiant, Gladiators, Florida and Fusion
(21 wins) Valiant plays vs. Boston, Gladiators, NYXL, London, Houston, Shock and Dallas
(21 wins) Fusion plays vs. Dallas, NYXL, Gladiators, Shock, Seoul, Houston and London
(20 wins) Gladiators plays vs. Valiant, Fusion, NYXL, London, Shanghai and Seoul
(19 wins) Seoul plays vs. NYXL, London, Shanghai, Florida, Boston, Fusion, Dallas and Gladiators
(18 wins) Houston plays vs. Shock, Shanghai, Florida, Dallas, Valiant, Fusion and NYXL

If we expect everyone losses to NYXL and wins vs. Shanghai and Florida. Scenario where Boston would drop out of Top-6 would be that Boston would lose to Florida and Shanghai, but I don't really buy that one yet.

If I would have to predict final standings today it would be

2nd London (25 wins)
3rd Fusion (25 wins)
4th Gladiators (25 wins) (Pacific Division Top seed)
5th Valiant (24 wins)
6th Boston (24 wins)
7th Houston (23 wins)
8th Seoul (22 wins)

Possibly +/- 1 win for each, which still means Seoul is out of Top-6. Houston could get in, but too hard to predict map differentials

Possibly. Philly needs to keep fighting for their playoff spot and show their A-game for couple more weeks in every match, but NYXL is already top-seed so their focus might change into hiding strats for playoffs or just giving everyone some play-time. I'm sure NYXL still wants to win every match, but probably they wouldn't show any new ideas for any maps.

I think there's quite a few players in OWL who could be "considered one tricks" based on how many heroes they play on very high level, but that's actually pretty incorrect.

We could look at Striker who is Top3 Tracer in the League, but my knowledge of his other heroes is quite limited. Past few games I have seen him play mostly Pharah and Junkrat, when he couldn't play Tracer and he was probably quite okay with those heroes. Also played Hanzo in King's Row. Think we saw some Widow play also from him in last couple matches. Personally I think he does "okay" with those heroes he played, but I think Boston's dps duo is kind of forced to play heroes, which they play "just at okay level", where as Carpe, Linkzr were able to play one of their best heroes vs Boston and dominated the match.

Yeah. Personally I would like to see every Contenders mostly being same region players, but like with Overwatch League some teams signed well-known names and some of them are proven talents and some are on the bench full-time. And some (-cough- Boston -cough-) signed bunch of nobodies and they run the League now.

I think depending on how many teams they get to join from Pacific, China, South America or Australia for OWL Season 2 (or 3) they might have hard times to keep Contenders player pool in their own region, if NA Academy teams will poach all top talent. It's not that much better with EU either though, when most of the teams running without org in Contenders.

That's one thing they need to change for 2019.

Didn't Korean roster already win Pacific Contenders anyways? Prize pool was smaller than in Korean Contenders, but I would assume this is one thing why prize pool is smallest Australia and South America Contenders. Pacific have smaller prize pool than EU, NA, Korea or China Contenders too. But the question I would want to ask is: How would have this full korean roster (Detonator.Korea) perform in Korean Contenders? British Hurricane got 40k dollars as prize money in Europe, but I am bad at comparing EU vs South America, but pretty sure in South America that money gets you more things than in Europe.

Nothing wrong fielding korean roster in Pacific Contenders, but it does it really develop "Pacific talent", if more teams would end up running full korean rosters in every region?

Pretty much this. Although I believe 23 or 24 wins will be the magic number for making Playoffs.

First Seoul tactically plays themselves out for Stage 1 playoffs, keep up the trend in Stage 2 Playoffs. Stage 3 they just sucked and now they are playing themselves out for Season Playoffs.

I honestly don't know, what to think, if both London and Seoul keeps losing and falling in standings. Even Boston might drop from 2nd place (well technically 3rd since Pacific Div leader would be 2nd) and drop to lower seeds in Playoffs.

Philly/Seoul wouldn't be that high without Carpe/Fleta, but how high NYXL would be, if one of Jjonak, SBB or Libero would not be playing like they are playing?

If we go by MVP (Most Valuable Player) definition for his team, it's clearly Carpe or Fleta. Sometimes people think MVP is same as Best Player and this is, where Carpe or Fleta might be as clear choice.

At least it's only 25% fan vote and 75% from OWL analysts/casters (who hopefully vote for Most Valuable Player for his team)

Viewership seems pretty decent as it's somewhere between 100-150k (in twitch) everyday, but of course we have to see, what kind of numbers final playoffs will have. Production is pretty good overall.

Obliviously some games seems so boring to even watch (like NYXL vs Dallas or Shanghai). As overall I think Stage 1 was just to find out, "what is Overwatch League" so no need to look too deeply into viewership or games in Stage 1. There was couple awesome games, but many teams were still scrappy. In Stage 2 couple of those teams, which were scrappy at the beginning started to get their pieces together and compete for Top-6. As for Stage 3 I feel a bit exhausted maybe watching so much earlier already as I tried to watch as much as I can, but now I am almost just browsing something else at the same time, if match is not very interesting. But that's EU times so it's pretty hard to follow.

I don't think penalties have been that much off. Pretty sure there was something else with xQc than his twitch chat things. He was just not ready to be a professional Overwatch player as his stream was just too precious for him. xQc just loved to create drama on his stream even he probably didn't mean half of, what he said. EQO was not banned by the League, only fined. Philly Fusion "banned" him internally.

SADO getting 30 games and OGE only 4 games is puzzling though. Only way I can understand that is OGE joined Dallas like at the end of Stage 2 so he "missed" 18 games before his signing. Of course there can be different levels in their stories, but probably just didn't want to screw up Dallas totally for rest of the season.

As of Season 2 expectations I would like to see more teams (4 or 6), more analysts (2), new caster duo (EU Contenders casters) well more analysts/casters depending how many new teams will join the League. Korean player percentage dropping from 45% and more EU and NA players (currently EU 25%, NA 20%).

Well you could imagine new EU team(s) might go a bitmore EU based core than C9 chose to go (France team might even go full french people) as long as ownership is EU based. Although it might depend, when first season is outside of LA.

In theory Paris, Cities in Spain/Germany/Italy (just based on high population those might be interesting places Blizzard wants to expand OWL) are more realistic to find local investors than some maybe more interesting cities based on, where players are coming from like Stocholm, Helsinki or Copenhagen. but I really doubt there's an investor who would put 30+ million into esports over 5 years or so.

Should be a wake up call for Philly, but to be honest Dallas should lose this no matter how badly Philly plays, if Effect is still in Korea.

Fun fact though that teams with most map losses vs Shanghai are Philly and Dallas (4 maps each). Rest of the map losses vs Shanghai are from Seoul (3 maps), Shock (2 maps), Florida and Boston (1 map each).

NYXL reverse sweeping Philly really did crush something in Philly's mindset.

(edit) Seems like Philly at least got their stuff together to Oasis.

Probably not as high as LAG, but at least at same level with Dallas/Florida.

Hard to disagree at least for NA finals. EU semifinals might be the one with surprise though.

Would be cool, but probably a nightmare for logistics. Like one day travel for some teams and all that possibly just for one match. Unrealistic for this year, but who knows in a year or two.

Suppose Blizzard/OWL wants to keep EU scene "alive" while 2018 and give us EU/NA Contenders LAN Finals for all 3 Contenders Seasons for this year? Maybe this is their way to showcase Overwatch live event to possible investors from EU for OWL Season 2?

My wishlist would be like:

1. Helsinki
2. Stockholm
3. Copenhagen
4. Paris
5. Berlin, Cologne, Munich (basically any city in Germany)
6. Australia (Sydney)
7. 2nd Korea team (Busan?)
8. 2nd China team (Beijing?)
9. Brazil team (Rio?)
10. Chigago
11. team from Canada would be sweet

Reality sadly is though that Helsinki, Stockholm, Copenhagen ain't realistic unless some big money from States comes to invest

If Season 2 will get 6 more teams I would hope at least 3 would be from Europe, 2 from Asia and 1 can be from USA (to even the numbers to 4 EU, 4 Asia, 10 USA)

Well hasn't it been like with 7-3 record, what made you get into Stage 1 and 2 playoffs (and being out with 7-3 record too). If Houston wins, I believe Philly would have to beat korean rosters to make Stage Finals. IF Philly wins, Houston might even still have a shot making it (since they did beat London already this stage). As now there's 4 teams in Stage Playoffs, 7-3 record might be enough without looking map differentials (there was 5 teams in Stage1 and 4 teams in Stage2 with 7-3 record). Even Shock, Fuel and Mayhem can beat some teams now and ruin their playoff chances.

It's quite hard to speculate this early, when there's about 6-7 teams (Seoul, London, Houston, Philly, Valiant, Gladiators and (with a question mark, because of lots of reasons: DPS flexibility, Team morale etc.) Boston), which can beat each other and make things difficult to predict. NYXL being ahead of these teams of course.

Houston always wins London, Philly always wins Houston, London always wins Philly...that has almost been the trend in regular season.

Obviously 18 and 14 wouldn't be okay, but like 18,0 and like 16,7 or something might sound not too bad, but surely 21 and 14 is not okay. This might be different in many countries as I think in Finland that age is 15 or 16, but this Dreamkazper case is a still a bit odd one for me (since I don't know enough facts).

The facts I know are:
1) Dreamkazper has been texting (Facetime, Snapchat what ever) with a girl who claims to be 14
2) Saying "He send me dick picks in snapchat, but they are not there anymore since snapchat won't keep those photos longer than one day" won't make it true. It can still be true, but without proof it's kind of odd thing to say. Although since it seems Boston Uprising already terminated his contract there's some (or all of it) truth in this story.
3) "Friendship" between 21 and 14 years olds isn't illegal, but of course sexual photos between them would be illegal.

Things that I don't know:
1) What Dreamkazper have actually been sending to a girl or asking girl to send to him
2) When girl told her age to Dreamkazper (before or after sending or asking nudes etc.)
3) To be honest I still don't know, if the girl actually is 14 or whatever she claims to be. (I don't expect this to be told in publicly, but I would expect this to be check out privately by like checking ID's or something)

As overall it's pretty hard to follow up these kind of things, when you won't be provided all the information (mostly, because some of it is very personal and sensitive information). If he wouldn't have get sanctioned we could imagine girl would have been lying, but as it seems Boston terminated Dreamkazper's contract there's at least some truth in this story. It's just hard to see a full picture in this whole story as we will not be provided enough information.

It could still be that $30 for Season 2 or it could be higher, but that's just still speculating. I highly doubt that OWL (or any other e-sports) would go into pay-to-view in near future, but who knows in 10 years or so. Unless viewership goes into millions for regular season matches that simply won't happen.

30 dollars (or 20 dollars with Twitch Prime) for full season doesn't sound too bad. Also getting some skins(3), spray and player icon into in-game and some stuff into Twitch, but well it's nothing that special other than being some cosmetic. If price would be higher for season 2 then there should be also more benefits for price.

Orisa would say "Golden".

I wouldn't be surprised, if there is a deal to keep him there or at least NYXL would be willing to pay.. lets say... at least 200k for Flower, if someone goes bidwar, if that ever would happen.

Sinatraa went for 150k... so 200k for Flower seems quite little though....

Would you really want to play Control map with Symmetra and Torb? Which basically forces everyone else to pick tanks/supports? There's simple no tank/support combination, which would work with that dps duo... for attacking on point....

Video actually was made by LA Valiant not Blizzard.

I would think this case is, because of SADO ban happened before the season and Blizzard likely wanted to send a message, what happens to future account boosters who might want to participate in pro tournament.

OGE case on the other hand is little different as 18 games (or 20 as he wont be in USA until Stage 3) has been already played so technically he was not even able to play first half of the season. So you could see this ban is 22 games (or 24, if ban begins after stage 2). I mean imagine Philly would have signed SADO midseason (where he would already have missed 20 games). when only 20 games left. You can't expect midseason signings to get banned 30 games, when there's not even 30 games left.

We can only guess, if there's two different level of account boosting in these cases.