New vid:
Rewind! Rotations on Hollywood

Just as bad, but with a lesser understanding of the game and a good chunk of players thinking they would be in Diamond/Masters if it wasn't for heir horrible teammates. So, lesser game sense + varying levels of lacking mechanical skills

The ladder is pretty much not fun to play in across the board from what I heard.

I don't know how much help reddit can provide but I did find myself a few peeps to have some fun or kinda serious ranked with sometimes:

https://www.reddit.com/r/OverwatchLFT/

I mean, I finally got my first star so clearly...Haitian Voodoo > F- shitposts

With this long to prepare I hope this ends up going all the way...with a LH victory in the end.

Sideshow, I bow down to your mastery of all things Overwatch. FORGIVE ME FOR DOUBTING YOU MY GOD.

On a serious note, with both being Canadian Orgs this makes me both happy and sad at the same time. Jaru is a certified beast so he's a guaranteed asset anywhere he goes.

I do hope both teams get the pieces they need to rise to the level I think they can reach. I want me a Canadian based OWL team.

Make it happen boyz!

This isn't about being right or wrong, it's a discussion. If you're not willing to have a civilized debate you've come to the wrong website. Arguing with you is pointless if your responses are going to keep resembling what you just spat out just there.

Learn to debate and have some respect.

As much as I understand that you want people to not overhype this in a blindly optimistic way you also need to consider that you may be overly pessimistic in your approach here.

We're trying to have a conversation about the effects of the OWL, good and bad, but there's not much value in your arguments if all they bring is subjective notions of nationality and the lack of LANs being the end all be all of this League's failure.

Try and bring more objective observations to back up your comments and do attempt to concede when the counter argument has solid facts behind it.

That's how you properly debate without sounding completely biased and possibly unwilling to understand the other side, imo.

I think it's supposed to be pronounced Energy, so like..San Francisco Energy, not great but much better than San Francisco NRG right?

VIVE LA FRANCE...VIVE LA RÉVOLUTION!! VICTOIRE!!!

I took Sideshow's advise. Post a lot, pray it gets upfragged and practice VooDoo. Now, I'm Haitian so the last bit comes naturally, your milage may vary.

OMG. I GOT MY STAR......MOM....MOOOOM!!! I MADE IT!!!!

The coach pretty much shut down the notion that they had the spot but that may have been to quell any ideas of rumors starting up.

I don't see why they wouldn't be able to make it to APEX considering what the current talent pool looks like right now. You could argue that, in a vacuum, they could be as good or better than Flash Lux based on the core members.

I wouldn't be surprised to see the main team move up, but I also wouldn't be that shocked to see them both stick around. The one thing I do assume is that if Miro and friends were to be moved they would probably go for quite the premium.

You could also try no-lifing it and stand next to a computer screen constantly refreshing the Over.gg page in the hopes that something new pops up to comment on it in a way that you perceive as constructive or informative and hope that others either agree with you or at least understand the message you were trying to convey and respond in a coherent and thought out manner so that a true conversation can be had.

I may have overthunk this.

Considering that they'd only been practicing for a week they did better than I expected. With reshuffling going on in Korea it's good to see a stable Org doubling down into the scene and putting their faith in another squad.

That's a concern I have as well. I'm totally making assumptions here but I think Blizz will, hopefully, get on the promotion train a bit harder.

I feel like the game needs more visibility to get the viewers it needs so that it's not just limited to us OW nerds. Your example for APEX is a good one though the matches for that tournament were usually at 6:00 and 8:00 am eastern time so I think that may have been the biggest deterrent.

Also note that the teams you named are not in the league at this time, but if they were and had the money for it they could just field a new squad. I don't think that's realistic for some orgs but if the league will not be centered around players, it will more than likely be centered around the teams they play for.

The success of the league may very well come down to how well Blizz and all those associated can present it to the masses to generate sustainable interest.

I'm no eSport or marketing expert so take this with a grain of salt but if they can manage to do that and do it well I think this league has a solid chance.

I don't dislike banter and shit talking most of the time. I think the clip of him talking about Selfless after the Dafran ban was suspect at best.

It wasn't going to bring any flavor to competitiveness at that point and was pretty much just a free sucker punch imo. I'm a big fan of banter when it's to generate competitive hype, whether ppl see it as much is up to them, but sometimes ppl are just dicks for no particular reason and I don't see the usefulness in that aspect of it.

Other than that I can fully understand that he's really passionate, cant truly fault him for that imo.

They're looking relatively good, was nice to see some different stuff happening too. LH#1 with Gido still showing how strong they are, even if it was against a brand spanking new team.

I don't know myself, but maybe number of posts + upvotes? Probably some combination but I am entirely unsure.

Most people in any sport don't have local teams though.

I like hockey but with only 31 teams, and worst only 6 of them being in Canada, for me "local" takes on a much broader meaning and it should hopefully do the same for others that are really invested in the sport/eSport.

You're correct in what they're trying to do, and I believe that was the perceived goal ever since they first announced the model way back when. Best case scenario they get the best of both worlds with both local fans and remote fans who either like individual players and follow them around or just like the team itself regardless of where it is.

Worst case is that only hard core Overwatch fans care and that the league/scene dies for lack of support.

I look forward to seeing what happens but am obviously hoping for the best here. The bigger this get the higher the chances it can properly expand and hopefully revive regions that really need it, sooner rather than later.

Finally some concrete information to look at instead of being forced to grasp at air. I also wanted to note GosuGamer's article:
http://www.gosugamers.net/overwatch/news/44946-potential-conflict-of-interest-revealed-in-owl-franchise-list

I'm hoping it's not as big of a deal as it seems and that it will be properly regulated.

Otherwise I'm also curious to see what the top tier 1 and two teams like Rogue, nV and even C9 will do since they don't seem to be in the mix just yet.

OWL has nothing to do with the current teams. It's all about the orgs. They can build, or try to build, any team they want but the org itself has to buy a spot. IMT will more than likely keep their current roster, but had it been an NRG situation over their they could have just gone for another squad if they had the capital.

Heck they could even buy a whole NA or EU team in theory.

AFR also failed to end in the top 5 of challengers so it's not that surprising.

They also have Sylph so I'm wondering if he's going to come into the picture. He was sick so he couldn't play last season.

I like this, the perspective of adding his own philosophy to this team may help them take the next step. What I'd be curious to see is how coaching a western team with no Koreans in it will turn out.

Best of luck to him!

He seems to be trying his best to "reform" and I'd say it would be a shame to miss out on the team itself just for one part of it.

I've never been a huge fan of him but you have to admit that their matches were entertaining and that has to be worth something imo.

• Edit: Also, they have the relatively new 1-2-3 flag meta.

Maybe they wanted to secure him before he possibly could have become unavailable.

OK Harsha, I'll give you points for the pun but only because I like you...

On a serious note, hopefully we get more tournaments to see these guys in sooner rather than later. They've been on the rise before but a bigger sample size to see if they can maintain this consistency would definitely not be a bad thing.

A chance for LWR to finish strong in challengers before APEX with a perfect match record in this group phase. Looking forward to seeing if they can keep it up on the big stage.

New vid up:
Let's break it down! Rogue's dirty dive

LinGan Esports seems to be missing from the list of teams on the event page and their roster seems to be missing from the team page and match discussions.

I think this may be causing issues for team match/map scores as well, Lucky Future does not show this recent loss.

Edit: They fixed it.

Even before the great org exodus if the opposite was true the game would really be in trouble.

Just want to say that I don't completely disagree with you. In my opinion the state of Overwatch as an eSports game isn't great right now and as noted by several sources it could even be on the decline. That's compounded by the mostly negative view of the movement of orgs in regards ti the game's future and uncertainty. This trickles down to players possibly having to decide if they want to dive into Overwatch full time without the support of an org behind them and the risks associated with that choice.

I'm not sure how you quantify "gone to shit", but to me the game isn't there yet. I don't think it's "gone to shit" quite yet and not because i'm an optimist. I do like the game but I value logical analysis above all. From what I understand, with my limited knowledge and bias, OWL seems to prefer players not being tied to orgs. The ones with amazing rosters may chose to hold on to their squad either to try and buy a spot, or for resale value to orgs who have the capital and the backing. I don't think that's good because people are left wondering "what now?" and trying to bridge the gap. I also don't work for Blizzard so I don't know what their actual end game is, now matter how ill advised I feel the means may be.

Interest in the game may very well have declined, but it's still there. It could fail, but it could still succeed. My main argument is and always has been to temper expectations, both positive and negative, until we get more tangible information, until we get more than rumors or hearsay articles. Common sense often fails when left without context.

• Wall of text crits your whole party for 99999 damage, your save file has also been deleted.

You might end up being right in the end, the OWL might be a bust and Overwatch as an eSport could be dead on it's feet. The issue right now though is that the game is barely over a year old and as you mentioned what they're trying to do is massive and pretty much unprecedented in it's scale.

The angle I chose to take on this is that Blizz seems to prefer having a massive pool of talent for teams to choose from instead of Orgs that don't have the capital to buy into the league holding on to those contracts.

Not saying that's the right way because I hate seeing so many players fall into uncertainty as their Orgs decide to move away from the game "for now". However, until the OWL either succeeds or fails, and I don't know how long that will take to determine, you can't call Overwatch a dead game. If it's to be focused around this league I don't see how we can logically confirm or make statements about it's failure.

Just want to re-iterate that the concern many are showing is warranted and can't be dismissed, just can't let it escalate into full blow panic and prophecies of doomsday and end times.

We can suppose, we can assume and we can theorize all we want but at this point it's all just glorified opinions. That's my own glorified opinion.

I think the issue is how long would it take for an Overwatch team to be sustainable. Right now the big boys with the big money are okay but apparently the smaller Orgs don't want to take the immediate risk instead opting for a wait and see approach.

I don't know if that's indicative of things getting dicey or if people really do want to wait on these big promises that Blizz is making to "maybe" get back into the game.

But again, I don't know how much of a negative effect that behavior could have on the success or viability of Overwatch as en eSport.

Another could well do the same tomorrow but it still doesn't mean the game is dying. We all lack line of sight into what Blizzard is doing and for some that's concerning.

For others it's business as usual. I myself am not fond of not knowing what's going to happen to my new favorite game at the top level but I can't panic, because I don't have access to enough information to justify it. You could say I lack vision, and that the end is already upon us, but I think you're falling into the echo chamber trap that we're in, mainly because, again, Blizz hasn't given out enough information and folks feel compelled to filled the gaps with their opinions.

I can't call you wrong for having the impression that OW is in trouble, but do try not to mention it as if it were fact. You don't know.

Very few people actually do right now, so temper the hyperbole statements.

Please and thank you.

Also, they just announced Lunatic Hai would be participating on July 12th, no mention of the opponent yet though.

Hyperlink in case your copy/paste skills are twitch chat level:

Meta Athena vs Ardeont on PTR

The great Meza will soon make his appearance.

That I can understand and agree with but the way things are reported on is also important. The fact that I've only seen him shit on Overwatch makes me want to find other outlets for the information to make sure that he doesn't overwhelm the article with his opinion.

Definitely not saying he's a liar, because I don't know, but I value appropriate amounts of objectiveness in any article to show that one isn't entirely, or in some cases, blindly biased.

The comment above explains what I also think is going on. Without more information we can only speculate, just remember not to start taking speculations as fact.

Blind circle jerking is a thing, let's not allow it to get out of hand.

With AFR's loss Meta Bellum is guaranteed a spot in APEX Season 4 since their will be no foreign teams next season.

I also want to mention this link:
https://esports.yahoo.com/overwatch-league-aiming-nba-nfl-sized-revenues-says-activision-president-ceo-120051801.html

Note the choice of words in the article's title: "Overwatch League aiming for NBA and NFL-sized revenues, says Activision president and CEO"

Not quite what was mentioned Richard Lewis' article and I'd take either with a grain of salt, but let's make sure not to blow this out of proportion prematurely.

I like to think, and take great pride in the fact that over.gg isn't reddit.

That's not necessarily luck. It's being skilled and clutching when it matters.

Insane match. Nico mvp with the winning D.Va bomb for sure. Best series of the tournament without the shadow of a doubt.

Interesting, hope it works out well for him!

IMT now flexing their 1-2-3 flag meta, but is it enough to climb out of the hole they're in?

I'd be reserved about this until other sources echo the report, mainly because this article seems to lack objectiveness.

Bo7 my friend.

Better yet would be a LAN where no one's at home, still don't think Rogue would be anywhere close to dominating LH or KDP. I think you don't give those teams enough credit tbh.

As for this match Rogue is looking like old Rogue again, let's see if IMT can bring this back.