Very likely.

I commend you on your honor and sacrifice. Good man, Ned Stark.

The first map was a nail biter, but I expected it from Control. The other two, Numbani and Anubis, were clinical examples of how to outplay your opponent.

I'd say it's worth watching if you're a LH fanboy like me. Might be a bit painful if you prefer Runaway but otherwise it's a relatively short match so I'd watch anyways.

Welp, in terms of matches I'm 3-1, but in terms of perfect map scores I'm 1/4. Would be pretty funny if no one managed to have a perfect week with both wins and map scores throughout these group phases.

I'd actually take that as a good sign for Overwatch if things are this unpredictable.

It's very unfortunate. With WhoRU being too young and EscA having to do his military service they might be looking at only having Gido and LTJ. At that point I'm not sure who will flex on what but they need a top tier projectile player to replace WHoRU imo.

Though I'd hate breaking up the KDP team I'd still be very interested in seeing what kind of team and coordination LH might have been able to pull off with a DPS duo like Birdring/Rascal that would allow them to flex onto what ever they want while having the stronger Tank/Support quartet out there.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate their current core, but they really need more flexibility in their hero pools once they lose some of their key pieces and in my opinion this version of LH would be the uncontested best team in the world.

These guys are just monsters when they have time to prepare properly, and tonight it was Runaway that looked really stubborn not changing things up after losing Numbani at least.

Now I'm really hoping that Runaway come up big and pretty much 3-0 MVP Space for them to make it through, because I think they might still have chance.

LH 3-0 Meta and Runaway 3-0 MVP Space:
LH / 2-1 / 8-3-1
Runaway / 2-1 / 6-3-0 *
MVP S / 2-1 / 6-5-1
MA / 0-3 / 0-9-0

LH 3-0 Meta and Runaway 3-1 MVP Space:
LH / 2-1 / 8-3-1
MVP S / 2-1 / 7-5-1
Runaway / 2-1 / 6-4-0 *
MA / 0-3 / 0-9-0

If LH win they get 8 map wins regardless so that pretty much guarantees them a top two finish with the three way tie breaker. Runaway pretty much needs to 3-0 MVP Space to make it through with how big the loss was today. Very difficult position to be in but not impossible to get out of if they can deal with Yaki and OneFact. Note that the only thing I'm unsure of is how MVP's draw is counted, it might end up giving them a better record than Runaway in the end but I can't say for certain.

Edit: Added a few scenarios.

Oh this is interesting, more layers might give them more flexibilities and possible comps, I hope this works out for the best for them.

That also hasn't been relevant since him needing to play Tracer in Season 2, before then it was the "Our Taejun, your Taejun" meme that ran supreme.

LH showing more flexibility than I've ever seen from them, they really need this win and it's apparent they've been working hard for it.

You expected him to give them 10s or something? He was asked the question and answered so I'm uncertain what point you're actually trying yo make or for what reason, but I'd give him a 6 if the same comparison was made.

Wouldn't pin it on any specific players. The team as a whole and probably the environment was the problem. Shifting the blame does nothing regardless of who you target.

New vid, IMT vs eV:
Let's break it down! Missed opportunity from Immortals still ends in won fight

Of course, but you can't base your analysis on what we haven't seen yet, going off quantifiable results is the only actual way of trying to predict apparent strength.

As you say, it remains to be seen what the effect of the November meta will have on teams but that's not something you can take into account right now with any kind of accuracy.

There's nothing wrong with being incorrect about something 2-3 months away using the data you have available to you now, imo.

Lunatic Hai 2, soon with WhoRU maybe? Bunny + WhoRU sounds like a good duo to challenge T2 of KR, or more, if they can work well together as a whole unit

FaZe does seem like they could claim their seat as the 2nd best NA team right now but more games need to be had to solidify that since they could very well get beaten by other squads. Two matches shouldn't be enough to confirm them as such just yet.

What's unfortunate is that right now EnvyUs look as if they're far above everyone else kind like what Rogue had a few months back. Just when we looked like we could finally have a measure of parity at the top of the scene.

Grim needs to step it up, problem is he's likely to have a bad time with Carpe on the other side while Agilities will have to challenge SDB. This is going to be very difficult for IMT if they can't sort out the disconnect that's going on with their dive. This has the chance of either being an epic match on the patch to redemption, or a dumpster fest of a train reck.

I'm hoping for the former, Faze wins 3-1, let's see that prediction curse in full effect with another reversal.

He needs a solid partner in crime that can compliment what he brings, hope they give us more matches made in Overwatch caster heaven!

I believe in ma boyz, I believe in the Great White North, Pet Meese, Two Bedroom Igloos, Canadian Bacon, Milk Bags and Maple Syrup but more importantly, I believe in the vision I envisioned of EnVision winning this match!

EnVision takes it 3-1

I agree, he's about to pull a Bunny...just before BK Stars got destroyed by EnvyUs.

As a Canadian even I'm disappointed that the B side of the bracket arguably looks so much more stacked than the A side. I hope we get to see epic matches on the way to the finals either way.

I think the possible issue with that is that seeds had nothing to do with how strong the countries' actual teams may have been since they were just based on ladder rankings.

IMO, it's a flawed system not just because of the playoff draw, but also because of the initial seeding method.

You forgot to Kappa.

OWC Brackets are finalized!

Left Bracket
Sweden vs UK
Canada vs Australia

Right Bracket
China vs France
USA vs Korea

Important game ahead for EnVision, they've taken down two of what were considered to be top teams and now face one of the most scrappy and unpredictable squads of the tournament.

Given the caliber of teams they've both faced and the results they were able to get in those matches I think eV has a very solid chance of increasing their win streak to 3. There's no way to really tell how this one will go since I fully believe either team could take it, but I'll go with my favorite pick of this tournament.

EnVision wins 3-1, may the odds be ever in your favour.

Wow, I guess you really do just need to wish for things to come true! GG eV!

On the other hand I did a bit better in NA predictions with a 3-1 for wins and 2/4 in map scores, already starving for next week.

Canadian Bacon won today, I'm so incredibly proud of this squad and how much they must have worked for this. Numlocked was obviously not the problem and I'm very happy that he was able to show what he's made.

I...EnVision next week to be just as exciting!

Winston's gun is hitscan AOE. And no, there only two types of weapon in this game, they either have a travel time or not.

They might be applied in different ways like beams (Winston would technically count as an AOE beam but that's still "hitscan".

I think it's easy to look real bad when the opponent is dominating you in every aspect, might be more indicative of how strong EnvyUs are than how bad FaZe is.

Let's not forget the one sided affair that was IMT vs vN last week, in that context this match isn't that surprising.

Almost as funny as Korea vs "Any Team"

I guess you mean he's not a traditional projectile, but yes, his primary fire is projectiles.

The only question I have for this squad is how they'd do if forced to run a Rein comp, hopefully they do it better than Rogue but otherwise they look very strong.

This is the match I've been waiting for all tournament, the battle of Titans to see who can remain undefeated and claim the top dog position in the group stages.

Both have looked very strong lately and the result from their most recent meeting can't really be taken into account because of MY's roster issues at the time.

I'll give this one 2-1 for LGD but wouldn't be surprised to see it go either way be it 2-1 or 2-0. No clue what to expect from this match, but I hope it's epic.

I will be waking up early for this.

Taimou vs SDB...SAIKYOU NO GENJI SENSOU...HAJIMERU YO!!!

Robert Downey Jr. taught me never to go full weeb, but screw it, epic anime battles call for it.

Jokes aside this looks like a 4-0 for EnvyUs..but hey it's Overwatch Contenders, where you literally have to sacrifice a goat to the gods to get back to back correct predictions.

I guess the new additions worked out pretty well. Will have to see how they do against Gigantti, 123 and GO, but the Sinatraa/Nevix duo was an impressive sight to see.

By the way the forum post you linked holds no definite answer, or community confirmation as you put it, just a bunch of differing opinions.

Would definitely need confirmation from Blizz in some form since this is seen as a gray zone by quite a few.

Yeah, and I also think that him just being able to flex to which ever DPS they need really lets them leverage his insanely huge hero pool.

From what my feeble mind understands this doesn't change game behaviour but keyboard input so that the game doesn't get conflicting information from your hardware causing your character to not move when both keys are pressed because of double key feedback.

As far as I understand it's nothing you can't do with your hands, since not hitting both keys at the same time is very much within the realm of human capabilities.

Correct me if i'm wrong here.

Can't argue with you on that. That DPS duo is just monstrously scary, like, unreal.

I think the gap is smaller than what we might assume since both Linkzr and Davin are, imo, almost on par with Tviq and Logix on Tracer/Genji. I think Misfits has the advantage when it comes to DPS versatility because of Tviq but Fragi is the better tank overall.

I think it should be a very interesting and tight game unless one of the team throws or chokes, and even then, that might be a result of their opponent really taking it to them.

Edit: Welp, Logix hyper carry + Tviq hero ocean too stronk.

The Sinatraa + Nevix combo was very strong as expected. IMO the main issue with eUnited is the same one facing Rogue in that they don't have a strong off tank player.

Since triple DPS is no longer effective they're left struggling with a weaker tank duo. Both of the previous top dogs of their regions will need to either shore up their rosters with players than can more properly fill the roles or just dedicate players to be offtanks and flex to DPS when needed instead of the other way around.

Remains to be seen if either can do this effectively enough to get strong, consistent results.

They need to be able to compete with teams like nV, LH, LWB and IMT so I'm guessing they'd have to see how those matches actually go before making an informed decision.

Huh? If you mean my flag it's Haiti, not Russia, there's no white.

The setup and circumstances are definitely a huge problem, but the players roles is something they decided as a team with Winz going to Quakecon so I can't take it into account. Luckily Kolsti is a very talented tank and they seem to have been able to work out enough kinks to be effective..

In the end they still looked more coordinated than last week against a team of similar strength imo. As for ping I don't think it's a factor/issue at all since, as I mentioned, it should be relatively low from where they're playing.

Hopefully they get all of the logistical issues solved, but they without a doubt still need to fix huge issues with their play or risk getting destroyed by the other top teams like EnvyUs.

FNRGFE really let Kungarna free push on that streets phase. They were pretty much only able to take one good fight and one last minute rush because of it.

In the RNG vs KUN match they stopped them before the archway giving themselves so much more margin for errors even though they threw the map in the end.

I think this would have been a 2-0 had FNRGFE been more aggressive on the defense for sure.

I have to agree, I think that teams have just gotten much better at dive after being able to play it for so long and Rogue have never looked 100% conformable running D.Va.

They like to have Nico run it on offence and switch to AKM on defence and even though it nets them more team fight wins it feels like they'd just rather try and run the triple DPS whenever possible.

They're all talented players so I feel that if they can truly add more heroes and comps into their effective pools that they can come back on top with more flexibility.

Canada's ping to the US servers isn't bad though, should be around 30ms or so with a decent connection, could be less depending on what servers get chosen and/or a good connection.

Definitely not anything crazy like Koreans or Brazilians playing in NA tournaments.

Seems to me like Rogue need to stop relying on Soon for opening picks that they can snowball off of. I think that's the main reason why their team play is lacklustre since all they have to do is coordinate the dive after they've already secured a man advantage. You can see this in the way they use their support ults early to try and secure early picks.

They looked like they were losing a large portion of the even numbered team fights, they may need to change the way they engage and play in general.

Really looking forward to seeing how GO deal with the top teams of the tournament after duking on the, arguably, weaker ones in the first two weeks.

If NY is any indication a non NA roster may not be an issue but performance will most certainly be.

White should be in for Kerlos again, unless they go in a different direction.

Rogue win 3-1

• I believe Rogue should come back stronger this week, they're still a talented team and I think they can take advantage of the lapses in play that RNG seems to have more often than not. This match still has a good chance of being an upset all things considered.

Kungarna win 3-1

• Kungarna have looked very strong against less organized teams while FNRGFE weren't able to really capitalize on opportunities they were creating for themselves. This feels like the match where the team that manages to screw up the least will win. This is also my pick for this week's NA game with the highest chance for an upset.

EnvyUs win 4-0

• nV showed that their lack of flexibility is a thing of the past with EFFECT displaying a really good Doomfist. Until another team proves otherwise they seem like the clear favorites to come out on top at the end of this phase.

Immortals win 4-0

• With the coaching staff they have I think IMT will come back strong this week and are unlikely to get surprised by eV like Rogue did. Their play style are similar and i believe IMT can win the engagements and take each map.

Low key though, I'm still hoping eV can pull another monster upset since they're my sentimental favorites in this tournament.