It's football peasants, therefore, I have the true advantage Kappa

I can see that being possible, though I think Blizz is too much into the accessibility mindset that making cosmetics exclusive to bring them back at a premium later on isn't what they're looking to do.

I don't see it being a concept they'd implement until we see them take a very different direction than the one they're currently following.

Meta should win this. NC Foxes haven't shown much in the Nexus tournament with both KDU and Runaway going father than them and Meta Athena being arguably better than those tow teams.

Anything can happen, cause Overwatch, but I think Meta should come away with the victory.

I want muh skins man.

I approve of this great message.

I think it's to give a chance for anyone who may have missed the game to have a chance at it. I don't think they'd want new players to not be able to acquire these just because they hadn't discovered the game yet.

If anything I think a good compromise would be not to run the event each year or possibly cycle the rewards so that they come back every other season or such.

I doubt they'd do anything of what either of us mentioned since it's very possible that a person may play the game on and off and mostly come back for events and a chance at skins etc.

Making the skins exclusive might be cool for those who play a lot or consistently but I don't think they want to limit their possible profits from having it be more accessible.

Not sure about it being cheesy but it should be fun. Hopefully the comp trolls lighten up and leave the craziness of comp behind.

I think I'll enjoy the event regardless.

I've been playing a bit on my 2nd account cause I dun care bout that one and I can just play w/o the stress of ranks, but mainly Arcade and QP on my main.

Lucio Ball looks hella fun and I'll for sure give it a go!

Same, I never got a chance to try it and it might be a nice break from the hell that is comp.

Most likely normal english drowned out by xQc's french accent.

I think the boyz are ready to crush it, or at least bribe the competition with S level maple syrup.

Victory is assured.

I believe in you.

I love that idea, cause on top of overtime spawns the the attacking team would eventually just cap the point if they could maintain their advantage. Throwing bodies on the point would still be a thing but the impact would be lessened.

I'm thinking they could also scale the capping speed the more your numbers advantage in the point increases. That would mean that not getting full team wipes would no longer be as punishing. It also has the added benefit of not requiring a rework of the whole system as well.

One negative I could see if that attacking teams may no longer see the need to fully reset increasing the number of long brawls the the hopes of eventually getting a man advantage and some cap progress. Might make a higher number of messy, hard to follow, engagements.

Overall I do like the idea, should be added the the Overwatch subreddits imo.

Even though i think Taiwan has a high chance of finishing first i also think the USA has an even higher chance of qualifying. As I currently see it they're the 2nd best team out of those 8 so I would give them the advantage over the first or 2nd place team of Group H.

For the purpose of having the best chance of going deeper in the tournament I think they're better off finishing in 2nd and getting either Canada, Russia or the Netherlands depending on who wins what matchup and avoiding South Korea.

Personally I'm rooting for a USA vs Canada QF matchup cause it might be the only chance we have to get one!

8:00 am eastern? Looks like I'll be dodging work hella hard Friday morning.

Note that BLANK got absolutely destroyed by these guys for about 7 weeks? They went 1-8 including the finals winning a total of 5 maps across those 9 games.

I'd argue that Taiwan is very different from Australia so I think I have to go 3-1 for Taiwan here. I'm rooting for USA regardless of later seeding so I'd be happy to see them win, I'm not convinced their star power will overcome this opponent.

Hope it will be an epic game though.

I'm rooting for Canada, no surprise there, but I think Taiwan is currently the favourite to come out on top of their group. They're a full team and have demonstrated themselves to be beast.

According to them their scrims vs Tier 2 Korean teams resulted in victories and the ones against the top teams resulted in losses. Of course scrims have to be taken with a giant grain of salt but those results sound pretty much like what Rogue and Envy were able to achieve.

I'm totally biased towards our two NA teams and I'll root for both to win, but it sounds like they have their work cut out for them both when facing the eastern teams specially.

I think they can make it, just saying it's predicted to be an uphill battle.

Flag is the one from Haiti, but it's missing the little emblem in the middle, it's blue/red. Google ma flag to see what it usually looks like.

That could happen on the condition that the meta permits it. I mean if their opponent can run dive into them with remotely as much success as AFB did it'll be hard for them.

They're kinda like the NiP of old having trouble adjusting to this new meta.

Unfortunate but kind of expected. Since IMT got the LA spot it made sense to let go of the team. More great players added to the available talent pool for the OWL.

Wouldn't be surprised to see at least one of these guys get picked up.

Making move to be more versatile? Can't fault em for that, hope it works out for them. They have little time shape up before contenders so I'd love to see them come back into form and reclaim their top team status.

Finally, the puns I've been waiting for are back!

Now, these guys have some scary teams to face, let's hope Arnold can teach em a thing or two about choppers and time travel and they might be able to win through shear star power alone!

Jokes aside, I hope they do their best and are proud of what ever feasts of strength they manage to pull off...drug free of course.

That and The Immortals actually have the LA spot so Hollywood didn't make much sense.

I want to agree but i'm not too sure. Barring amazing surprises like Japan at Sydney these groups seem to have extremely solid contenders for top two in each group.

For the most part I think there's just the Canada vs Russia battle for top spot and possibly the Netherlands vs Canada/Russia qualifier that could yield result different from what some could assume.

At face value I think we're probably looking at Korea being joined by Canada/Netherlands/Russia at Blizzcon but the remaining matches may very well be sweeps.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see unexpected gems from these matches but i'm not quite convinced we will outside of the three possible matchups I listed.

He's back at it!:
Let's break it down! Kongdoo forgets the objective

I'd imagine the two choice you listed would be the most probable ones but we'll see what Blizz announces.

Hidden Leaf vs France, Baguettes vs Kurama...will the 9 Tail Demon Fox's rare flag be enough to secure victory?

1. How do I pronounce "Pataässät"
2. RiP bout to rip the shit out of their pj's, Hulk style.

DixxyDix bout to "surprise baguette" his opponents. Should be good.

Also, we have Maple. Fucking. Syrup. Enough said.

This. I'm very curious.

Be warned, it's a very long read but I like the insight it provides into LH and how they do what they do. I also took note of just how much talent the coach sees in Jehong:

When somebody inquired the coach about Ryujehong’s age and his game sense, he replied that “if Jehong had been 7 years younger, in other words, 20 yrs old, he would have been an uncontested best overwatch player in the world because Ryujehong admitted himself that his reaction timing is definitely not as good as his Blacksquad days, as well as his aim and thinking process”.

That's a pretty scary prospect considering how effective he is right now.

The Dutchmen might have a solid shot at this if they can take down Jehong early in most fights. This is going to be a tough one and you never know what can happen but at the very least I hope they can take a map off of them and avoid the sweep.

I have faith in my Canadian squad but I'm not gonna lie, Russia's flag diversity is next level right now, oh and their two new additions are nutty.

But Winter has come, and we'll be the ones left standing after we weather the storm in our Igloos and ride our Meese to victory!

More from the LH coach, Alwaysoov, talking to fan on his stream, thanks again to the relentless hero that is TISrobin311.

The post is too long to copy and paste so here's a link to the Reddit thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Competitiveoverwatch/comments/6qordy/lunatic_hai_coach_talks_about_the_finals/

I'd argue that Rein and Junkrat aren't back yet. Neither have been used outside of niche picks. I do agree that we could see Doomfist if he's allowed and I'm looking forward to seeing how he changes things up.

#17 listed a few reasons as to why NA viewership could have been lower. I doubt you actually the know reason yourself so I'll fix your last comment for you:

"still korean viewers were simillar to last years, I think its whats been happening to western scene (what blizzard been or rather havent been doing) that could have caused this".

I'm personally very invested in watching APEX, even getting up at an ungodly hour just to do it. But I can't tell if other western viewers may have lost interest because the last APEX tournament with western teams didn't have one (again), or because of the long production (again) or if they're just looking towards western events or if, as you said, Blizz has pissed them off and getting up was no longer worth it.

For the most part the whole event isn't geared towards western viewers so I don't think comparing those particular numbers is that impactful. Maybe if we saw a dip in overall Korean viewership (I don't have the numbers so I don't know) then I think it would be a bigger cause for concern.

More than anything I want to ask, do you want Overwatch to succeed? What do you think should be done to make that happen? Pointing out flaws in a system is part of constructive criticism, another part is to bring forth ideas an possible solutions. In your original post in this thread you said you didn't want to sound negative, but without suggestions you can only sound negative, instead of constructive/critical.

Trial by fire for the new squad! Hope this turns out to be an insane game, make it happen boyz!

Interesting, any new blood into the EU scene can only be a good thing.

A lot of rebuilding going on in Korea, we'll get to see if any of them can catch up to the top teams since the gap seems to have widened with LH/KDP at the top, AFB guarding the gate to Tier 1 and LWB having fallen off a bit but still being somewhere up there.

Lunatic Hai were interviewed after their victory at APEX and our resident Reddit God TISrobin311 posted a thread about it.

This is the Reddit thread itself:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Competitiveoverwatch/comments/6qf6qn/overwatch_apex_finals_lunatichai_id_like_to_thank/

This is the direct link to the interview:
https://www.invenglobal.com/overwatch/articles/2563/overwatch-apex-finals-lunatic-hai-id-like-to-thank-my-teammates-for-holding-out-so-well

As the coach mentions LH is an Org that will prioritize team unity before fame/success. I think it's pretty amazing that they put their faith into Gido instead of putting up with WhoRU.

Solid squad, they should finish 2nd in their group but they have a real chance of making it to Blizzcon since getting past Canada or Russia is very doable.

GL boyz!

iie.

Our /r/COW God, TISrobin311, translated Birdring analysis of the finals vs LH, he's joined by the IMT head coach. The post is way too long to copy and paste so I'll just link to it here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Competitiveoverwatch/comments/6qcrrt/birdring_recaps_the_apex_season_3_finals_on/

Was a very interesting read, also rip Kariv, they bodied the shit out of him lol. Even Jehong (in chat) joined in on the shit talk. Good to see they can have some good bants so soon after such a high octane game.

Sweet, looking forward to seeing the ones for this season as well.

I feel like they also could have won both assault maps but in each of the final rounds they got picked off early and were never able to recover.

Sounds about right. I also assume that seeing your team win the championship without you must me mighty humbling.

Chill out, this isn't the Reddit comment section, though I do agree that throwing the word "confirmed" around doesn't magically make it true.

At this point I think it's highly probable, just not "confirmed" yet.

It's unofficially official you mean? From a legal standpoint it's not confirmed until he and/or the org issues a statement saying that it is. People can and do change their minds but from all the reports I'd say it's highly probable, just not confirmed.

I hope he does, these metrics are very interesting to compare.

Last I checked it was 45k OGN and 25k OGN_Global but I don't know what the actual peaks were. Still though, that would be 10k less than last season's Finals.

Also, do you have numbers for any of the other broadcast methods? This reddit thread mentions three plus TV but I don't know how to corroborate this numbers listed in there:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Competitiveoverwatch/comments/646ffi/almost_160k_live_viewers_right_now_for_apex/

I'd be interested in seeing if this season's numbers are lower across all platforms or just twitch. It would be unfortunate for such a huge tournament to be on the decline if what you mentioned is both accurate and replicated throughout all the services.