Sparkle will never play in OWL. By the time he finally turns 18 he will be so burnt out of grinding in contenders while watching players worse than him make OWL that he'll quit.

Microwaved shredded cheese is a terrible idea

https://overwatchcontenders.com/en-us/news/22861402

Mega Pog

Pavane got picked to be the head coach of the Korean world cup team for a reason. NYXL still has very good coaching

SF Shock will contend for a title in S2 led by the best coach in the league, Crusty, and the ridiculous dps duo of Striker and Architect. If Viol2t is as good as I've heard he is, they could legitimately win the entire league.

NYXL will (and should) trade Ark, who will become the most expensive player in league history.

Shanghai will be the biggest disappointment of any team. With their failure to upgrade their tank line and inability to get Decay the team will just look like a worse version of the contenders KR team that lost to Runaway.

Philly Fusion are objectively worse than they were last season. They might struggle to make the playoffs, especially if Zarya stays in the meta, since they lost their two best Zarya players in SDB and Hotba.

Mind you, that isn't to say I think teams should go full Korean. The most consistent and meta-proof teams throughout S1 OWL were Valiant and Gladiators after getting Fissure. Mixed teams are the way to go. Limiting your talent pool to a single region, even if that region is Korea, is a mistake, but if you're going to make that mistake, don't keep around players you aren't going to sign just for marketing.

If your team exists solely for marketing, that's kind of unfair to the players. The Hurricane players will never move up to Spitfire and Cloud 9 can make other OWL teams pay more in transfer fees than the players might otherwise come with, making it harder for them to get signed into OWL. A Contenders team should be a feeder team to develop prospects that you want to bring up to OWL one day. Similar to how it is with minor league baseball in the US, the organization doesn't care about the success of the whole Contenders team as much as they care about cultivating talent that they can bring up to their OWL team. If you own an OWL team, which would you rather have, a team that wins Contenders in your region but provides no boost to your main team or 2 solid players that you can bring up to the big leagues in case a player on the main team can't keep their spot for whatever reason? If Spitfire continues to drag in top British talent into Hurricane but doesn't give them a chance to make OWL, that hurts the EU scene more than if the Academy team had Koreans.

Hey maybe this will finally make people realize how stupid the "local/regional talent" idea is and appreciate their team's players regardless of where they're from.

CX HYPE!

Toronto: No real star power, dps players aren't particularly exciting.

Chengdu: None of their players except for Yveltal and maybe Lateyoung have shown anything in the past year that would suggest they belong in OWL.

Seoul: Hitscan DPS. Munchkin is going to have to play significantly better than he did last season.

Shanghai: They kept a tank line that played half of the season for an 0-40 team.

DC: Their support line is hot garbage

Philly: Boombox is average and Poko's Zarya is worse than his dva.

LAV: KSF and Bunny were unimpressive during S1.

Paris: Finnsi is a bit of a question mark for me, and Shadowburn has a tendency to be really inconsistent.

Hangzhou: Either Adora or Bazzi is going to have to step it up big time, since Krystal and GodsB have very similar hero pools.

Florida: Sayaplayer will still be completely left out to dry by a weak tank line and mediocre supports. The only difference is that his dps partner will at least share his misery of being significantly better than the rest of the team.

London: Profit can only carry a team so far. Eventually, the rest of the team will have to pick up the slack.

Boston: Their management is a hot mess and Aimgod looked pretty bad in S1.

LAG: Yeah these guys are pretty much set. The team is loaded with talent and the players all seem to like each other.

Dallas: Dallas still is going to have to deal with the team chemistry issues that plagued them throughout season 1, but this time they won't have the steadying presence of Seagull to help out.

SFS: They have to figure out who is going to play dps. Striker is probably their most talented player but I'd be worried about the mental aspect of things due to the events surrounding him and Boston.

NYXL: They have 3 hitscan dps who at times have looked like the best player in the world. Which one of them gets playing time and how they perform will be key.

Atlanta: Dafran and Gator are trouble waiting to start. I'm not sure how their personalities will mesh with the Koreans.

Guangzhou: Support line is somewhat unproven, no real star player.

Vancouver: They need to adjust from playing like a contenders team and playing against contenders teams to the new world of OWL. Haksal and Stitch will have to be at their absolute best.

Houston: They have a solid Dva in coolmatt. They have a great Zarya in Spree. They do not have anyone who can play both of those heroes at an OWL level, meaning the comps they can play on any given map will be very limited.

PHF-LDN= 2-3
NYXL-BOS= 4-0
SEO-LAG= 3-2
SHD-HZS=3-1
TOR-HOU= 2-3
ATL-FLM= 3-2
DAL-SFS= 3-1
CDH-GZC= 0-4
LDN-PAR= 3-1
WAS-NYXL= 0-4
LAV-HZS=3-2
VAN-SHD= 3-1
HOU-BOS= 3-1
PHF-ATL= 4-0
SFS-LAG=1-3
SEO-DAL= 3-1

Don't sleep on Seoul with Ana back in the meta. Also, y'all are bold picking a Boston team that will have exactly 1 dps player available.

Yes, let's increase the prize pool of our league with salaried players and team spots that cost far more than could ever be made through prize money alone instead of making it so that contenders players can eat.

20. Shanghai: Fearless was just another cog in the broken machine that was the Dragons. His play wasn't at the level it needed to be.
21. Chengdu: Ameng is a mid-tier CN contenders player. I refuse to believe he would be anyone's first choice.
22. Florida: AwesomeGuy wasn't good enough to help Sayaplayer carry.
23. Boston: I don't even know if Gamsu will be the main tank come season 2. The org seems broken, which isn't really Gamsu's fault, but don't expect much from him or anyone else on that team.
24. Paris: Unlike many of his teammates, Benbest doesn't actually have good results against top teams. Team France got rolled by Canada in the OWWC (although I'll admit that was mostly winz's fault), and Young and Beautiful went 2-3 in groups each season of EU contenders before promptly losing in the first round of playoffs.
25. Toronto: O2 Team had one really good run in contenders KR but were never particularly impressive in their play.
26. GZ Charge: I honestly can't say much about Rio other than that Meta Bellum almost always beat who they were supposed to beat and lost to who they were supposed to lose to.
27. Houston: Muma is a solid player but tends to choke in big moments. Pretty much sums up Houston as a whole now that I think about it.
28. San Francisco: Super is basically Muma with a better Winston and worse Rein.
29. Atlanta: Popko is good but Element Mystic were choke artists in Contenders KR so that gives me some pause when rating him.
30. Dallas: OGE was one of the biggest reasons Dallas were able to turn around their season in stage 4. Losing Seagull hurts, but rCk should be fine enough as an off tank for the two to be able to coordinate well on dives.
31. Washington Justice: Janus looked pretty good in season 1, but then again, he was playing alongside the best players in the league so perhaps our image of him is clouded by how his team did.
32. Philly: You don't make the OWL finals without talented players, and both Sado and Fragi can play the role at a very high level.
33. LAG: Roar is probably the best thing they could've found to replace Fissure. Sadly, he isn't Fissure.
34. Hangzou: Guxue looked like the best player in China over the past few months. NoSmite could start for most teams.
35. Vancouver: Runaway wins games. Bumper wins games.
36. LAV: Fate provided consistent high level main tank play on both Winston and Rein throughout Season 1. South Korea chose him as their main tank for a reason.
37. London: Gesture provides a solid Winston, great Rein, and a proven champion. His teams have been the best in the world when it comes to performing in clutch situations.
38. NYXL: Mano was the anchor for what looked like the best team in the world for most of Season 1. He is equally good on Rein and Winston, which will help NYXL adjust to changing metas.
39. Seoul: Fissure was an MVP candidate most of the season playing for a team he didn't want to be on and with whom he couldn't really communicate. He single-handedly transformed the Gladiators from a bottom 4 team to a championship contender. His Rein isn't quite as good as his Winston, but his Winston is the best in the world by a fairly wide margin.

edit: I don't know why the numbers show as counting up for me. In case it needs clarification, it should be counting down from 20 (Shanghai) to 1 (Seoul)

Oh shit they got Harsha easy first place for Vancouver

Overall score: 8.5

DPS: The DPS of this team are very good. Krystal and GodsB in particular are fantastic. The only problem I can see happening with this team is when they play goats. Since GodsB and Krystal both prefer to play Brig over Zarya it will be difficult to have them both in the game at the same time. It's not really a bad problem to have, but it is one that comes up in other places. Hangzhou have a couple of cases of having two really fantastic players on the same role.

Tanks: Guxue and NoSmite are both exceptional main tanks. The only problem is, they're both main tanks. Ria will do fine and probably end up playing sort of a coolmat-style of consistent but not particularly flashy dva.

Supports: IDK is arguably the best player on the team, and could very well become a top player in the league. Their flex supports will probably do enough to hold their own against most of the opponents they face.

Summary: Solid, consistent, but not particularly flashy. They should comfortably make playoffs and could play in the semifinals or even finals, but I wouldn't pick them as a favorite to win the championship. They made smart and relatively safe picks regarding their player selection, and that should help them find stability early on. I obviously don't know how much each player is getting paid, but aside from IDK and maybe Guxue I would guess they didn't have to shell out tons of money for the roster. All signs point to the management knowing exactly what they were doing this offseason.

god damn it jebaited again

I'm just not sold on any of the Moss 7 Club players or Baconjack. M7C was a middle of the pack team in contenders CN and Baconjack hasn't played in a year, and when he did play his team, Flash Wolves, was a constant disappointment. This team does have some good pieces, but I feel like by not going with a mixed team they're wasting some of Garry's value as a player who played on an otherwise full Korean team. YXL is also a bit of a question mark for me. Sure, he was good on Miraculous Youngsters, but as we saw with Winz during OWWC, time off does matter, and YXL hasn't played since before OWL S1.

Remember how team Korea made China look like a joke in the OWWC grand finals? Yes, that was obviously the best team in the world and team China did look good in their win over Canada, but this team is strictly worse than team China.

Chengdu is looking like a solid pick for the worst team in season 2.

Is that... a South American player actually getting the chance to show his skills in a stronger contenders region? Let's go Klaus!

Zenith of Optimism is probably the best team name I've ever seen

https://twitter.com/brgaminghouse/status/1065325640965111809

Players are still planning on playing under the name Based Tryhards as an orgless team.

From what limited experience I have of seeing gameplay at that level, is it not possible to just stomp everyone on Winston? It seems like Winston could punish a lot of the mistakes those players make.

Over.gg just hasn't caught on within the general OW community. Unlike HLTV and even TFTV, this site isn't known by everyone in the community.

For years the Chicago Wolves were the minor league hockey team of the Atlanta Thrashers, while the Rockford Ice Hogs were the minor league team of the Chicago Blackhawks. Fans who care enough to pay attention to the t2 scene would have been able to figure it out.

Yeah, but think about cavemen trying to play Overwatch

https://twitter.com/Team_Kungarna/status/1061032741062361089

Because the only thing better than 4 dps players is 5

God I hate that Team Canada/LA Gladiators strat of waiting by spawn to make swaps on control. GGs though, Canada showed a lot of toughness to bring it back, especially considering they had just played a match right before this one.

It's time for these youngsters to pull off the miracle

MGE Mike and the LANimals showed why they belong in OWL. If I had any doubts after yesterday about the quality of EU Overwatch, they're gone. EU>>>>NA

I still believe in miracles

I believe in miracles

The US got what they deserved. Between Hydration's dismissal of Brazil, Sinatraa's teabagging, and the general cockiness of the team, they set themselves up to fail. It only reinforces how stupid the gap between Contenders and OWL is in terms of support. There is almost no skill gap.

https://twitter.com/RealLeakBoy/status/1056964063194898435

I don't even know what to say at this point.

Striker physically destroyed his computer equipment to psychologically destroy all the other tracer players.

EU is typically a lot better than China, but I thought teams had learned not to prioritize "local" talent. Soon will have a lot of carrying to do.

The Dragons are... really good now? I'm kinda surprised they didn't sign a main tank though, Fearless was never all that impressive.

https://twitter.com/brgaminghouse/status/1046900202739851266

Interesting that they'd pick up another dps, considering how good liko and dudu are. Hopefully that means one of those two has been signed to an OWL/academy team.

https://twitter.com/Spitfire/status/1045358107533041664

There will be 2 matches, one in London and one in Houston.

Edit: It doesn't look like there will be any actual full on competitive matches between the teams, just community games/gimmicky stuff.

The last 4 players signed to the SF Shock have all been Korean.

Most people in the US don't actually think we're going to win, but saying your team will lose isn't an American thing.

For the third consecutive year, the bracket has put the U.S against South Korea as early as possible under the rules.

usa always plays korea in round 1. That's just the law of the world cup

US has better supports, Canada has better dps, and Space and Note are both insane. This could honestly come down to a battle between Muma and xQc, which should be really fun to watch.

Wow... I fucking hate hydration now

What a match

I count 5 OWL players and 2 analysts in this thread. Funny how times have changed

F

My mom is from Wisconsin. The Green Bay Packers are a dominant gene. If you have even just one parent who is a Packers fan, you will be raised in Green and Gold. I will die defending the honor of the second coming of Christ, Aaron Rodgers.

My guess is they'll keep Diya for PR (and because he's a pretty good player) and go full Korean otherwise.