I'm a self proclaimed weeb, I'm black, and I love Dragons (even got a tattoo of one on my arm). Kuroi Ryuu means black dragon, but since it was taken I just added the two jersey numbers I wore while playing hockey (96 and 25).

I know, I'm a bucket of originality eh?

Hopefully the rest of the western centric OWL teams can do better, or else the Dallas Fuels are going to be our last hopes of the West taking Season 1.

Very much looking forward to seeing how they fare in Season 1.

Lisa's tweet just breaks my heart:
https://twitter.com/Rogue_lizlin/status/917136234660749312

The last map was close yes, but with the comps they ran, refusing to swap and just brute forcing their way to victory.

I don't think it's ever been easier to see just how big the gap between Envy and the rest of NA is. Hopefully the more western centric OWL teams can do better, or else we're looking at the Dallas Fuel vs the world.

Oh boy was I horribly wrong. This is why I love OW so much, hoping they do everything they can to improve it and make sure it flourishes.

In the end the best players on the winning team showed up more than the best players on the losing team. Still a very close match, decided by clutch moments and plays at the right times.

Wouldn't have it any other way, and I'm hoping that all of the players on team Gigantti get their fair chance, maybe even as a unit, because man did this team grow stronger as the tournament went on.

It's an unpopular opinion and I don't share it. In my opinion he plays all those heroes at an extremely high level, behind only the individual best "one tricks".

Zappis has to get a lot of credit for sticking it out and just rebuilding the team on top of playing what they need to win. Amazing guy, amazing team!

Edit: Also, not gonna lie, but I think having Reinforce might have actually been an advantage here for any maps where they wanted ti play the Rein. His Winston wasn't the best but it was also getting much better. On top of him being a beacon of morale for the team. It's easy to look back at this now since, hindsight, but it still makes you think.

For once, I can agree with you.

Upfragged.

The Manneten whiffed grav lost them that 3rd point. They would have had over 3 minutes in the bank too. Unfortunate.

Two more EU investors would have seen so many more players be in. Do we have word on what's happening with the Gigantti guys? Obviously they're a very high level team bursting at the seems with talent.

That's great, I'm not sure about Winz but I think he probably as options...I just really want to see AKM get in somewhere. There's no way someone with that much talent can be left out. I do think he needs to add more heroes to his pool but even as-is, the guy needs to get in.

I think Misfits has the Edge on Payload/Hybrid, mainly because it's less skirmishy and they seem to have more solid strats than Gigantti.

I still stand by my 4-2 Misfits "prediction" but man, this could be nuts!

Edit: Sombra too stronk!

Winz can always go back to Quake if he can't find a team, Soon and Unkoe are rumored for IMT.

Don't know what's going on with Knoxx but he's good enough to be in if he can expand his Tank Hero pool, or go back to Lucio.

AKM needs to fucking get in because he's a stellar hitscan, but adding more heroes to his pool might help him out.

Nico isn't OWL caliber on his OT or Genji, even though the latter is pretty damn good, if he works on his OT heroes along with having a strong Genji in his pocket he could eventually get in imo.

The way I see it all but Nico are strong enough to be in OWL right now, not including any possible personality/compatibility issues, imo.

Misfits vs Gigantti

• Misfits win 4-2

EnvyUs vs FaZe

• EnvyUs win 4-2

Seagull's performance was better than I expected it to be considering the short time between him being announced and them deciding to use him.

His Pharah looked like one of the best in the tournament despite only being used for one map. Case in point being his duels with Buds who himself has proved to be a formidable Pharah this tournament. It's hard to come to much of conclusion since he only played one map and one hero, but I think he did great.

The one thing I got from this match is that FaZe is nuts, of course, but Tseini's Pharah is some scary shit. Ilios was very entertaining, and even if EnVision have obvious gaps in their play they still made it pretty far for a team that most probably slept on after hearing they had bought their ticket in.

I can't really tell who's the strongest team here, but if there's one thing I'm very sure about is that I absolutely want Runaway to win this and make it to the finals.

RUNAWAY FIGHTING!

GCB have been really good, but I think C9KD is much more balanced than LH with their DPS being one of, if not the best, duos in the world.

My gut feeling is a solid 4-0 for C9KD but I'm ready to be surprised by the, possibly ,future kings of APEX once the current ones leave for OWL.

Edit: Spelling is hard.

I'm thinking 4-2 or 4-3 for Misfits, I think they're a stronger squad when they play well but given the amount of talent on Gigantti an upset wouldn't be the craziest of things.

The first map being so close could easily be interpreted as FNRGFE really turning up, or EnvyUs not being as optimal as they could have been given the change in comp due to Seagull being in.

Either way the next two maps were successively less close as the match went on. They're a very strong team and I'll be very much looking forward to seeing if FaZe can crack the code. The one thing I'm very sure of is that Envy should have the advantage on KotH given Seagull's, imo, far superior Pharah play.

The finals should be a good match and I can't wait to see if this goes all the way.

He isn't playing for them at APAC, but in for Contenders.

Couple of rumors going around that Fleta may be going to Seoul and Libero may be going to NY. Will be interesting to see if either officially get announced.

Ah I was wondering why the Gigantti vs ENCE match looked like it suddenly got rescheduled. Looking forward to seeing if ENCE can make a match out of this and take it to Gigantti.

Very unfortunate for 123, they actually fought back much harder than I thought hey would given their situation and the lack of a huge pillar.

Also, can we officially say that Hafficool is no longer mid tier? He's been playing so well for them since coming on board!

This was so much closer than I ever could have imagined. Even more proof that the C9 squad is fully able to grow and improve. Hopefully they made a solid case for themselves and get the attention they deserve from OWL teams still looking to bolster their ranks.

FNRGFE started strong but EnvyUs showed why they're..."sitting on top"......YYYEEEEAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!

This makes me very sad that they won't be in OWL as a team. Clearly they have a lot of room to grow and improve as seen by how competitive this match is.

AFAIK he formed it and led it until getting cut from the team.

Just want to note that Jake referenced the idea of ult charge being refunded if the ult is interrupted but that the target is not killed.

Blizzard Forum post:
https://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/20759307900?page=1

I'd love for them to be allowed to participate in APEX S5 through this, though it's likely that they might just have to go through challengers for S6, but one can hope.

They looks extremely strong but then again we have the precedent of FW in that position, you really can't substitute the crucible that is APEX when gauging this team's strength.

Oh this gonna b gud.

I like the idea since killing an ulting hero would guarantee them losing ult charge and them not dying before it becomes usable would guarantee them still having it.

I think this could work but all ults would have to be standardized in some way, which would be more difficult for ults like shatter and sound barrier but much needed for consistency's sake imo.

As a Genji main and a Seagull fanboy, I am very pleased.

As a person also from Ottawa I'm happy to see him get a chance to show what he's got either in hopes of getting an OWL spot or for Contenders S2 and beyond.

Hoping they do well regardless of the competition over there as they go on and represent the west!

Risk/Reward ratio, if you get outplayed while using it you don't get it back. I think that's the correct way to handle it regardless of how long the activation is.

That being said they could reduce the activation time to make it less punishing, but no more freebies when getting outplayed now.

Edit - Geoff confirmed it was a bug:
https://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/20759317874?page=3#post-56

Possibly, but then it's very unintuitive to use since you have no indication of a swing, add in the non reg issues and it would be extremely difficult to gauge hits/misses and their intended results.

Right but the initial goal here was to fix the "unfun" nature of the Mercy hide and seek play style, can't say they succeeded in making taking away her "unfun" factor though.

This has nothing to do with making other supports more fun to play and that's already it's own subject.

This doesn't change how strong she is outside of Valk. Now, instead of resetting and lowering the CD it doubles the rez distance.

She was too strong as-is with the rez reset and the 10 sec rez on top of all the other modifiers in Valk, on top of having 1-2 rezes per team fight.

This should bring her back in line, though it might now even be enough to no longer see her being a must pick since, and this is the important part, she can still rez every 30 seconds.

The ult isn't extended, but it looks like it's a bug that causes you to get swing dmg even while pulling out the blade. I'm assuming this will be fixed.

Proud to announce that EnVision will be playing with a local (Ottawa, Canada) at APAC, Chayne.

His Tweet about it:
https://twitter.com/ChayneOW/status/915353909098635264

We could possibly be seeing Gido/Fleta for OWL if he can keep up the consistency since WhoRU is too young and EscA will eventually have to leave for military duty.

That one breaks my heart though. He's been such a huge part in their success, not sure how they'll fare now that they have to replace a main pillar of their comp.

AFAIK the roster lock only applied to players that had played in Contenders S1. I doubt Blizzard would bend the rules because he's "popular".

"Free Willy", it could have been grand.

NotLikeThis...

Nate Nanzer responded to a comment about APAC not inviting top western teams, there was some speculation as to why with some individuals calling them out for stacking the odds in China's favour.

Reddit thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Competitiveoverwatch/comments/73q3eh/interesting_point_made_by_captain_planet/

With OWL being the top tier league for Overwatch as a whole we could see multi region tournaments like these become the calling cards for teams in regions that aren't usually considered strong.

If they can somehow manage to show how good they are it could facilitate Extra Region OWL teams finding talent or getting their own region's team to look their way.

We're going to need s strong tier 2/3 and lower scene if we want this game to have some longevity...

Also, why not? Marked improvement after finally being able to play from Las Vegas. In the end results are results but I think we can't ignore the conditions they were in.