They already have Pine though, arguably better.

More exciting Overwatch to binge on this weekend. With lasts week's scores I'm prepared to see some crazy things and some competitive matches as teams work on their weaknesses over the weeks.

This comes down to Canada vs Puerto Rico English/French vs Spanish/English, which ultimately comes down to French vs Spanish.

France vs Spain proxy war? IT'S ON.

I added a link to yours and Kaeru's posts in the OWL Teams thread:
https://www.over.gg/5409/overwatch-league-teams

Finally, this tournament needs more western exposure. I mean it might just end up like the OPC matches in terms of viewership numbers given the ungodly hours but I'm prepared to forgo health and sleep for this.

Yess! Bout time!

I mentioned the post in the OWL Teams thread:
https://www.over.gg/5409/overwatch-league-teams

According to ESPN, as mentioned in these post:
https://www.over.gg/5420/lw-blue-set-to-take-nyc-owl-spot-sources-say
https://www.over.gg/5419/lw-blue-in-nyc-for-owl

The the LWB squad would have been picked up by the NYC group. Not sure how I feel about this, on paper they're really good and I guess it was likely to happen somewhere given the lack of Korean spots compared to the general strength of the region, but yeah, interesting. As expected Fl0w3r is too young to be signed so Pine will probably be stepping in for him. Really unfortunate that one of the best and most versatile DPS players won't be in this year but I'm also interested in what they do with him.

The article also mentions Luminosity Gaming playing a part in this so I wonder if that was the main reason they didn't pursue an OWL spot with their own squad whether it was the current one or a rebuild.

APEX teams have started making use of it the the past couple of seasons, this one more than before, but that's 8 players, so like you said I'm not sure many teams will go with a full 12 man roster. I'd say 8-10 maybe? Since you can get meta proof teams with that many.

I think right now most NA/EU teams have 6-7 with the extras being more for emergency than anything. The only teams I know for sure are trying to get 12 are Seoul and London but it remains to be seen it they stick to the max or not.

I'm sure several, if not most of them, will find homes in some capacity. Maybe even be part of some OWL super team for all I know, but it's even more talent added to the pool of available players.

Except that LH is the Seoul team and Mano's with LWB, who apparently got picked up by an OWL team. Don't think Gale is at the caliber where he'd be viable for OWL either since he has no credits to his name.

Otherwise interesting picks.

In case anyone missed it I'll shamelessly plug his thread:
https://www.over.gg/5409/overwatch-league-teams

Interesting rumor, wonder how much of it can be confirmed, but in any case with Jake and the rest of the LGE squad looking for teams I wonder what kind of squad Huk and management could assemble...

This also dispels the LWB rumor going around on Reddit, interesting Q&A, and it looks like he'll really be doing more behind the scenes work and less of directly choosing players for the team.

Hopefully the team is successful and competitive.

With the LG Evil guys now being LFT I guess LinGan can have the title by default now. Kappa

In all seriousness I think Chinese LGE will win this as they look to remain undefeated. They seem to be a bit more solid than FTD but there's no doubt this could go either way.

Should be a good match.

One thing's for sure though, whatever the roster is or who they're currently trying it seems to be impressive from all the praise given to them, even Grim from IMT.

Reddit thread:
GrimReality compares NRG to Envy

Kind of looks like LGE is folding but keeping the players under contract to cash in on their contract buyout? At this point I would have expected them to just release all the players but I guess it makes more business sense not to.

In any case I know all of them will get a spot, once again lots of talent added to the pool for OWL.

Sinatraa + Jake would be a scary ass prospect considering their flexibility and comfort picks.

I didn't quite cry, but I did get slightly choked up. Absolutely loved the cinematic.

Luminosity Gaming Evil players are posting LFT tweets

Jake:
https://twitter.com/jake_overwatch/status/900432508113891329

Avast:
https://twitter.com/Avast_o/status/900437447598899200

Super:
https://twitter.com/super_OW/status/900440982713491457

Edit: Added Avast's tweet, will edit when more post.

2nd edit - :candle:

New vid talking bout Envy:
Let's break it down! EnVy pushes its limits

Given how strong they looked against TS and how BP played against GO I think 123 could possibly take this 4-0. I still stand beside my impression that if they can find themselves a hidden treasure of a Finnish tank player...they will conquer Overwatch, AND THE WORLD...while signing the ABC song.

You know, cause it's easy as...123...YYYEEEEEAAAAHHHHH!!! :sunglasses:

Yeah, still I'd hope Blizz would put in clauses for players that will be 18 in that calendar year and allow them to be on the bench with the option of signing/playing once they hit 18.

In my opinion it would be a disservice to the league to not allow them to play because of their month or birth, specially for ridiculously talented players like Fl0w3r but hey, rules are rules right?

If for some reason they really can't do that then they could always send him to LWR until the next signing window. I'm also wondering if that's what LH will do with WhoRU, if he chooses to stay on board for the next 2 years.

Apparently the whole squad was picked up, and you could just have him sit on the bench for Pine until he's of age. Wouldn't be too surprising if they could use his year of birth to arrange something with the league, but I'm not sure C9 is where they're going.

As for Luna he's a bit lacking and as of right now I wouldn't quite say he deserves it. Yes he could improve but there are a good deal of proven choices that would be a better pick then him at the moment. Because of that I don't think there's an OWL spot for him in the near future but I do hope he gets to play at APEX again because he is a good support under the right conditions.

My one and only goal when I reach 4 stars is to use my power to create my own anime/manga style harem.

S4 is Canadian, unless you meant NA, big difference.

I don't usually edit a previous comment unless it's to clarify something within.

This will be an interesting match up, hopefully BLANK won't be too tired from having played immediately before this but we get to see how MEGA measures up against last season's runner up!

New dev update video with Jeff talkin' bout some Season 6 comp changes. Not quite what the community's been asking for and I think they're unlikely to make any changes of that nature during seasons but hopefully it helps at least somewhat.

YouTube vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jqf0e8zzyCw

"A Korean", that made me chuckle at how true it is.

I totally didn't just edit that mistake out, you crazy man.

He did well at OWC all things considered but I'm not sure if this squad as a whole is what they need to get out of the tier 3 purgatory they're currently in right now.

Same squad as you but Adam instead of Dhak, mainly because he and S4 can do some insane things.

The LWB announcement is a really interesting one, wondering if they keep the squad as-is or adding some NA/EU players to the mix despite possible communication barriers.

Meta Athena got destroyed by Runaway playing musical role chairs so if they do 3-0 here it wouldn't be a crazy surprise imo. Meta still has serious issues with dive so I could see this going MVP's way.

I think that the match vs Runaway is the one that might prove if they're the real deal or not. And depending on who wins/loses this group could actually get quite crazy because of their win vs Lunatic Hai.

It's still unfortunate that we'd lose two of 4 very interesting teams.

I'm thinking they could also get players/squads that are already signed given hoe much money they have so as far as I understand it, any non OWL team/players are fair game.

I think the Season 6 "possible changes" are what I'm looking forward to the most. If flexing actually starts being a thing this games might just become fun again for the most part.

I think this Tracer specifically would need to be lvl'd up since right now the name of the game seems to be having a strong Tracer and a strong flex that can play a lot of things. The Tviq/Logix combo is the best example I can find since they look absolutely terrifying.

EFFECT and Taimou are an exception to this since Taimou can't Tracer and they go w/o for maps where they want Doomfist. No clue if he can play a top Pro lvl Doom though. I really just want to see what kind of team they've built and if they can shake the NRG curse.

From what Taimou's saying it sounds like Seagull isn't part of the squad which would make me sad. Basically I think he'd be able to do good things with a solid Tracer by his side allowing him to flex to w/e is needed be it Genji, Pharah, Doomfist or even Hanzo or Mei.

As for iddqd him and his girlfriend argued against the idea that he was off the team. Taimou comment is vague enough that you could still interpret Andre as being part of the squad since he could have been the 1 player not in Contender S0 or S1, yet not being part of the "old NRG" before the rebuild.

It depends on how you'd interpret "old NRG", but personally I'd still want to see Seagull in there.

iddqd also responded saying him not being in the scrims didn't mean he was off the team and that Taimou didn't have that particular information.

Basically Taimou is vague enough that he's not explicitly saying iddqd is off the roster, and the man himself is confirming that he's not for what it's worth.

Also, :candle:, for all the fallen NRG heroes.

Really happy for HUK, he did an amazing job in his time with Toronto Esports in helping them qualify for Contenders S0, I have no doubt he'll be able to do great things for the Boston OWL squad.

I wonder if Lunatic Hai is going to have WhoRU play for the 2nd team until he's old enough for OWL. He'll only be eligible in 2019 so unless they can have some sort of arrangement or exception put in place for him he'd have to wait a really long time on the bench.

Also, FATCats to qualify for APEX along with LH, clearly.

In case you don't want to have to piece together all the clips of Seagull Q&A with Scott Mercer...someone did it for us!

Here's the reddit thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Competitiveoverwatch/comments/6vcekr/scott_mercer_seagull_q_and_a_summary/

Some of those are kind of expected and most of the answers are vague since he can't give any specific information but it looks like we'll get to see some changes soon(TM).

It's looking like Conbox and X6 might already have the top two spots locked in since they both defeated Meta Bellum so at worst they would be 1-1 to Meta Bellum's 0-2.

One thing I will say is that I'm happy for the players and hope that they get to thrive, but I'm also upset that Luna got cut without the chance to adjust only to see even LWB not playing in APEX. I wouldn't want the LWR squad to suffer from this since they're not responsible but I guess we'll have to see how it goes.

Looking forward to knowing who decided to pick this squad up since they looks like a very strong group with a lot of flexibility and meta change proofness.

I wonder if they'd try and go for a guy like Coolmatt, since he's not signed. The name of the game these days are OTs that can flex to DPS if needed, so I wonder who they decide(d) to go with.

Guess we didn't have to wait till 10:00 pm tonight...best kept secret in OW, on the level of the Kaiser to C9 secret.

Looking at how Envy absolutely dismantled IMT and that I'm not sure anyone on the KUN roster can outplay either EFFECT or Taimou...this looks like it could be shaping up to be a 4-0 for them.

But hey, screw the apparent odds cause Contenders S1 is here! No for real, I think Envy should win this but my butt cheeks are prepared and fully clenched in case KUN pulls an EnVision an takes this.

What they need is to expand their hero pool to incorporate more set strategies since they've proven not to be the types to swap on the spot.

Their DPS core is their weak point so either they get better at more heroes or they bring in another duo like SBB/Fl0w3r or Rascal/Birdring. Honestly if they actually did that the team would be absolutely frightening given how flexible those guys can be.

Hopefully LH has time to add more depth to their play. Specially since Esca will have to do his military service at some point. WhoRU would have been a solution to this since you could just have him flexing to whatever they need along with their strongest Tracer player at the time but...he got gud too young.

Will be interesting to see how they deal with this.

Just like my flag it can't put the coat of arms on it, probably too small.

This looks interesting, the defense matrix nerf bringers her in line and being able to shoot while boosting + missiles means Pharah is going to have a bad time with D.Va + Hitscan + Zen.

I'm liking the sound of these changes already. The missiles also give her more of a fighting chance against Doomfist since Matrix can't help her there.

Really excited to test this when it comes out.

I used to Imagine, but now I EnVision.

I've always wanted to be able to believe in these guys, mainly because they are a Canadian org (don't mind the lack of Canadians on the roster), but never got the chance to because neither they or Toronto Esports were viable enough to survive the stronger teams.

The win against Rogue showed that they are making their case for a solid position into tier 2, if they manage another upset it would put them in the conversation for being one of the best teams, possibly only having EnvyUS above them.

nV did show them a possible path to victory; punishing Fate as soon as he jumps into the backline while keeping the DPS at bay with a mid range hitscan. If eV can manage to do that consistently they have a solid chance of taking maps, and maybe even a victory off of IMT.

Realistically I think IMT will have looked at their mistakes and improved them so I think the match will probably end up 3-1 for IMT, but I'm fully on board the Canadian Bacon bandwagon no matter what happens this season.

Go eV Go!!

Edit: Gonna keep the same predicted scoreline even with the ChrisTFer -> numlocked swap but I'm still giving them the benefit of the doubt since I refuse to underestimate them this time around