Just noticed...IMT's flags are in disarray...THIS MATCH IS RIGGED!

Neither are known for their Winston and until dive goes away you need a really good one. I'm assuming they'll be looking for a main tank that can play both at the top level.

Rogue vs IMT rematch, we'll get to see if the latter's been able to come up with strats to deal with the Frenchmen and avoid having to taste the baguette once more.

Other than King's Row the maps were pretty close with both KotHs going to the 5th round. Arc6 is looking good for the future, I hope they can keep it up!

I don't know much about the strength in this Group A but it looks like it could be taken by almost any of them. Should be interesting, looking forward to next weekend.

That last push, I think IMT messed up and went too aggro letting AKM come in and Death Blossom but overall it was a very nice match. Once again the score doesn't do it justice.

I'm definitely not saying that Rogue and Envy lost at APEX because of burn out, they legit got outplayed, but APEX more than likely added to it. More LAN or tournaments in general don't necessarily add to your work load, it could just move it around. And I have no clue what is involved in CS:GO so I can't comment on that part.

It sounds like you're saying they're just not working hard enough and that all they're doing is complaining and making excuses. I think the debate itself is a bit of a moot point since your impression of how much it this games takes out of them isn't relevant to how the players are expressing it takes out of them.

Burn out is a thing, maybe they do just need to rethink their schedules, but the OWL shouldn't make things worst if they work around it and promote player health first and foremost imo.

These are all assumptions I have but tournaments don't make up the bulk of the time teams spend on the game. Scrims do, hours and hours of scrim to practice and perfect team play style and set plays. All of this so that they can perform at their best during the tournaments you mentioned. In the case of Rogue and nV you can add being in Korea and obviously needing to keep up scrims there.

I don't think OWL will change much since I assume they'd just adjust their scrim schedule around it.

I'm not sure why you'd think they would just be sitting around doing nothing in between tournaments, but going from what the players themselves have said, yes, burn out is a very real thing and player health needs to be emphasized if a "long" career is to be had in eSports, imo.

Must win for AFR, if they lose they're out. Even if they win they need Meta Bellum to lose and might still be behind them in terms of tie breakers. Things are looking grim for Season 2's most unlucky Korean team (they got destroyed in the group of death)

This is a tough one, in the last match Arc6 mostly had FNRGFE's number. We get to see if they can bounce back and if they had a chance to come up with a good answer for this and personally I'm hoping they have.

I can see this going either way seeing as how this tournament's been going but I'll give the edge to Arc6 on this one:

Arc6 3-2 FNRGFE

They took a well deserved and much needed break. Players are starting to visibly get burnt out, some after a year+ of non stop playing.

The matches they had were closer than what most people would have expected but this match will be another serious test of of well they can adjust to being challenged.

Again all I want is some high octane and exciting OW and in this showdown of two teams I like I'll go with my fav one:

IMT 3-2 Rogue

It goes w/o saying that this very well could be totally wrong, but I'm /praying to RNJesus that I haven't afflicted IMT with my Haitian Voodoo curse like the last few times...

Maybe! But I'm not sure if they want to go to a team w/o an Org considering how hard it is to be sponsored from what Runner's been saying.

Wouldn't be surprised if we did see them popping up in some of the new up and coming teams from challengers.

If Rogue is as sloppy as they were today I'm not even sure if they can take a map off of IMT. I hope we get to see both teams at their best for sure.

Didn't expect this result at all considering Rogue had to reverse sweep to keep their upper bracket dreams alive. Good to see that other teams are catching up and taking them to the brink.

Holly hell! Another match than was much closer than expected. Also, just Sombra things. Might be in for some more surprises as we go!

Time to see if Tempo can emulate eV and Arc6 against team Fran...I mean Rogue.

Arc6 looking like the addition of Custa has allowed them to go back to their balls to the wall aggressive play. This squad is looking real good. Fun match to watch for sure.

Also, it looks like 123 (EU) may have been on to something with this flag meta...

Naisu, lots of talent. Fun times ahead!

Oh this looks cool, wondering if LGD's going to dominate the group stages again, and if they do, how well they'll follow up in the playoffs. Now, I don't know much about the top Chinese teams other than LGD but X6 possibly being in this will shake things up for sure. I don't have a point of reference for comparison of the Korean and Chinese squad so if anyone does let me know who you think the favorites might be in this field.

Very goods news for Fleta and Flash Lux. Really hope the new additions bring some much needed life into that team because of the last two APEX seasons are any indicators eh can't carry the squad on his own even though he's a very talented player.

Dang lol, Mendo's little bro is a busy fella!

APEX Season 4 will not have any foreign teams and due to teams disbanding Super Week has been cancelled. The top 5 teams from this group will make it into APEX S4.

Because of Meta Bellum's voctory NC Foxes and Rox Orcas have secured their positions since AFR can get 1 series win at most while the former already have 2.

Because of this particular victory, even if Meta Bellum was to lose to NC Foxes and that AFR was to win against LWR I think Meta may already have secured their spot due to having won the head to head in this very match.

I might be dead wrong, at which point if should come down to map score and even the possibility of a tie breaking match between the two. In any case AFR's margin of error is razor thin at best, because having to defeat LWR sounds like a tall order right now.

Another awesome match. The map score doesn't do justice to just how bloody close this was. EnVision had a solid chance to win every single map here but IMT was able to power through to earn that win.

If eV can keep playing like this who knows how deep they can go.

Should be good, can't under estimate eV because they keep showing up to prove the naysayers wrong. I still think IMT will take this in the end but there's no telling how close this match might be in either direction.

CLG looking absolutely beast. As you mentioned LGE just hasn't been adjusting well to the current meta and their tank situation is a bit odd to me. Looks like they need a solid Winston here since Voll doesn't look that comfortable on it.

• Also, Slikthread is insane.

Baha! I do my best, I am Haitian after all. But jokes aside, I LOVED this match, a well deserved win by EnVision as they were just the better team here.

Not sure what's going with LGE of late since their play just isn't as crisp as it once was..or why Jake and Train swapped roles but their opponents just brought it too them and took it home!

Fun series to watch, much much closer than I expected!

Dropped out due to a previous commitment.

I have no doubt most if not all of them will find new homes. Too much talent in this team.

This is extremely unfortunate, they looked like they could actually compete given time if you set aside their weird tank situation. FeelsBadMan for Carpe too, I hope they all find success elsewhere.

In the end though it's good that they did what they could to relocate who they were able to. The Org itself seemed pretty awesome and again, I hope all their members find their ways back into the games they love to play.

I have to believe that Rogue are the favorites to win this over the rest, including Immortals, mainly because they've proven that no one outside of the current top two in Korea have been able to figure them out and shut them down.

I do think IMT can bring it to Rogue but I'll have to pause that train of thought until I see them go head to head, because of the lack of actual data and because consistency is king when it comes to ranking teams, imo. (Yes I'm copping out but I value consistent, empirical data over all and this game is so young there's relatively little of it.)

Results may vary along the way and "upsets", for some matches it's hard to tell who's the underdog, may flow a plenty but my long term prediction is an IMT vs Rogue final with Rogue taking it all in a hopefully nail bitingly close match.

I'd actually like to do a whole upper/lower bracket prediction but I'm not sure if/how teams get shuffled when moving from the upper bracket to the lower bracket.

I'm excited for some more Overwatch, and the next few weeks are gonna deliver.

The last remaining questiong is...will Arc6's 1-2-3 (1+2+3=6) flag meta be enough to defeat the awesome team name meta of FNRGFE?

Find out on the next episode of: "Just Overwatch Things Like Flag And Team Name Metas"

Yeah they all need a break to rest and hopefully make the game fun again. Maybe the Overwatch World Cup will help with that on the way to Contenders Season 1.

The most efficient way may be to take an already established roster and bring them in. I'm interested in seeing how APEX and OWL interact and if Blizz will allow for smaller tournaments to be run during APEX and what not.

There's a lot of possible options here if Blizz is willing to be more flexible after things kick off.

Lunatic Hai's coach also mentioned something along those lines in regards to Korean companies not wanting to invest in OW right now with the apparent decline in interest in that region.

I really hope they have a stellar APEX Season 4 because they were quite fun to watch with the original team and what they were able to do. Runner's an amazingly resilient person and it's unfortunate that they're having difficulties supporting the team as-is.

Yeah, months in a hotel for a maximum of 7 tournament games + how ever may scrims you can fit (that you'd actually benefit from) must not be easy.

Getting in for bootcamping then coming back sounds like a better proposition to me. Really the only factor was the rep and recognition of winning what had been the biggest and most important tournament in OW.

I do hope they add a few more truly international lans so we end up getting maybe like 2-3 per year so that different teams get a chance to participate and showcase themselves to the world.

Agreed, Selfless has yet to fully recover and their tank situation is an odd one but they did show signs of life so they could possibly come back in the future.

Right now I'd say something like this:

Tier 1: Rogue, nV
Tier 1.5: Immortals

• Every one else (across several other tiers)

I only put IMT in 1.5 because we haven't seen how they interact with the big boys yet, I'd gladly move them up if they show they can hang or even win!

In the end it also means EnvyUS will have been the only foreign team to win this tournament so whatever happens they'll always have that distinction.

Due to the cancellation of super week, and no foreign team being invited, Meta Bellum can guarantee their participation in APEX Season 4 here. One thing to note is that they did defeat AFR (3-1) in this phase of the tournament so they should go through if standard APEX tie breaking rules apply.

If the above is incorrect AFR need to defeat GC Busan on top of a Meta Bellum loss here to force a tie breaking mechanism.

Oh yeah I know, was just kidding around. I'd like Seagull to come back and for them to find a system that works for them.

Cohesive team play and proper communication so they don't look like they've never played this game together before.

I still like some of the parts of NRG, but my heart's been broken so many times...

What if NRG signs FNRGFE...and they stay good? BOOM.

Pretty sure Selfless never got rekt by Rogue, always taking them to the limit and they did the same when they played nV that one time.

He's making the Zerg flood look like a small dribble, one mo!:

Rewind! Aggressive holds on Hanamura B

Savage AF. Beast mode the heck out of em!

One more for the rabid fans out there:

Let's break it down! Laser Kittenz are over the top

He looks like he was an answer to the tank meta somewhat. I'm not sure they could have foreseen the meta being like this that deep into development if we're getting him now.

Lack of foresight in esports seems to be a Blizzard thing and I can only hope they start listening more at some point.

Tempo will also need to replace Jkw, a new Lucio/shot caller will more than likely hamstring them so this will be an even more uphill battle for them imo.

I like how their prize pool is $9500, that keeps them under Blizzard's radar right?

Very worth the read.

Blizzard hasn't put in any rules that require any number of players to be from the region they represent. Frankly I don't know why this would even be an issue for you.

Where a player is from, and who they play for, shouldn't matter as long as we get the highest possible level of competition. Achieving that can only help on the road to making this game successful in the long run, imo.