Hafficool on flex dps
Realzx on hitscan dps
Spree flex
wat7 tank

Then they did have evokje and Veineless on support, trialled hypoc on flex support recently and both fazz and kr4tos on Lucio.

I imagine it's because Dignitas have not officially announced it yet, hence why they all declined to comment.

That rule is gruelling.

No, they're not, Admirable was being a memer - this final match was just for seeding 1st or 2nd within the group so despite losing twice they are not eliminated. In their group it was SKG (1st seed Chinese side) who were eliminated, while iG.Fire go into the 3rd place decider round robin. Rogue beat both of those teams.

OGN confirmed North Korean propaganda! Sorry about that, changed it - the official names must have confused someone and they entered the wrong one.

Given OGN's history with production quality and the teams' movements, I think it's likely to all be held at LAN. The APAC Premier definitely is and the schedule for OGN suggests that enough time has been given for teams to play at a studio. I'm sure the answer is out there in Korean somewhere.

If Rogue don't make an impact we should all give up and move to Asia.

This should be a really cool game straight away. Vici came second in the qualifiers but they look to be on more of a hot streak than actually be a sick team. They also do this weird thing where yumu, their dps, plays Ana at the beginning of some maps while xbg, their support, plays roadhog. Then they swap after the first couple pushes. In general there was a ton more role swapping between the newer Chinese teams, based on ults or spawn waves. Zmmmm plays a ton more D.Va than the west too it seems.

Ah that makes sense. Well it's gonna be a tough road for everyone from the look of it, should be an awesome tournament.

Thanks gatozrs, your english is actually really good. What was the qualification process? Just one game in a single elim tournament? Do you think Run Away are just a really good new team that randomly got matched against LW Red or were LW Red playing very badly in the qualifiers?

Personally I think these groups are super weird. What kind of system has you put the 1st and 3rd seeds in the same group, when the others have 2nd/5th and 3rd/5th? And then you add the best team in the West in there and a top Korean team lmao, it's a nightmare group compared to NRG's and the only reason C is almost as bad is because NGA and ASG have the potential to outperform their seeds.

Also the way they're gonna seed people out of the groups is a bit odd because they started with 12. You're gonna get two games with 1st seeds from groups playing against 3rd seeds, one 1st seed against a 2nd seed, and then two 2nd seeds playing each other. Just random who gets that harder fixture in the middle, could be some really early good knockouts.

Sent in a box to china, this is what dreams are made of.

Added schedule to the bottom of the article as well to roughly outline the plan, but follow the match ticker for updates.

Seems very strange from our surface point of view that neither LW.Red nor Afreeca Freecs Red qualified. Some of the former best teams in the region couldn't make top 12 in Korea for OGN? Something must be wrong with my understanding of it or they slumped ridiculously hard.

If we're talking about tanks overall, fact fiction was sick. His Winston was the best in the tournament and his rein was top three.

Rogue were super focused in the last three maps of the game against FaZe and then they were really stepping up all series against Misfits until the end of Eichenwalde. As soon as they broke their focus to laugh at Misfits leaving the cart they lost it mentally. They set themselves up for failure by expecting the win to be gifted to them and buggered up the entire tournament because of it. You could see it all plain as day on Reinforce's face, the guy wears his heart on his sleeve and it really hurts their team if even he is out of it because he's the one who injects the hype and confidence into those guys.

ryb played amazingly this entire tournament, he's just so solid lmao it's like watching him play tf2. Obviously they won't cut skipjack, both because he was fantastic and because he's been away for family issues, but I think ryb has proven himself as a world class tank here. Nevix is a god as well and Hidan has been on fire.

Yo FCTFCTN is going wild, I had never noticed him before this tournament but his Winston and to a slightly lesser extent his Rein is awesome. zombs isn't a monster on zarya but hits some perfect gravitons too. The calling from Rawkus I think is tying the pieces together from the look of it. Pretty sick performance.

If you limit it to this tournament I'd say you're about right. So far he's been one of the best and had the most responsibility, probably edges it.

FaZe did really well to beat REUNITED but imo they dodged a bullet by avoiding NiP in any of the group matches and they are going to get a shock when they go up against Rogue.

They have the star talent to beat a team like Dignitas, I don't think that holds against Rogue.

I'd like to see Misfits NiP, will be interesting to see how those teams stylistically match up.

I think Dignitas have got it again, Control should be instabans and they've got the edge on the rest of the pool barring maybe Dorado/Eichenwalde.

Yeah they're over an hour behind schedule today too and it's not even gone to OT a lot or w/e. They've just underestimated how long a match will take overall.
I actually like it though because rather than having to fill a ton of dead time (which would really open up the flaws in the desk I think) they're forced to keep it short and snappy and the stuff they've prepared rattles through quite nicely. The showplan is evident and lends the tournament pace.

People seem to complain about every meta... I like watching this one, there's a ton of variety in team compositions and strategy. The ults are super powerful but it makes them more valuable.

Morte looked devastated. To be fair they wouldn't have done better with 2easy, I think they tilted themselves after weeks of playing against tanks and then the NiP game.

I think the perception of Overwatch as casual will be a short-lived one (or at least as a serious counter to it being considered a competitive esport). It's got a lot of depth and the more people get to grips with the game and get inside the heads of the pros they'll begin to reveal it.

Interested to see whether Rogue play into it better

Firstly, I am 100% looking forward to Thorin getting into Overwatch providing interesting insight and experience. Secondly it's excellent that he's got a big enough platform and name to not be afraid to call out some of the awful production issues that plague the game at the moment.

It may seem harsh on HuK at the moment, and to be fair he's the most brusque of the talent, but there are others who need a similar brushing down. I'm looking forward to the entrance of professionals into the scene to be honest, there are really only a few of them around.

To be fair, OW is getting past the time where storylines from previous titles are instrumental in the players' careers now. Other than the odd snippet (comparable to when cs casters bring up 1.6 histories or rivalries) it'd be far more relevant to think about their ups and downs within ow's life. That's what people are building teams, cutting people, and being rivals for at this point. It is growing just old enough to become its own scene and begin to forget about the amalgamation that saw it form imo.

Nope, only 7. Chips, harry, cocco, hulk, taimou, vonethil, and iddqd. custa is an Aussie who moved to NA and talespin/buds/stoop/coolmatt are US.

Certainly promotes winning, whoever comes top is in for a fat payday in OW terms.

That is a crazy difference between first and second.

It's SO dumb it's unbelievable and if I hear the casters really peddle this NA vs EU bollocks I'm gonna be mad. It's such tripe when the best "NA" team only has Talespin lmfao.

That tiny issue aside I really enjoyed watching today and the performance from nV was great in those last few maps. They've had a much easier road to the GF than whoever the EU challenger is but their performance has still been sick. Really impressed by chips' Ana play and the team's awareness in general. Seem to be pretty far ahead of the other teams in terms of knowing what ults are live for the enemy and how to mitigate them.

Their only weakness is when they lose their minds and just feed into the point like on KR against Fnatic and on Hollywood against C9. They sometimes just forget to regroup and keep running in one at a time, feeding ults to the other team. Idk why it happens, assume it's just the rare map where they forget to call a regroup, but it looks like a totally different nV when they get themselves in that pickle.

Gods was playing better in this tournament than he has in a while, couldn't make it work against Fnatic but he brought the level up against Liquid in key moments. Still wasn't amazing by any means but he was doing more work than his previous showings.

Interestingly HULK said they had more difficulty with NRG than with Fnatic in recent scrims. I still think Fnatic will pull through but it will be huge for the NRG guys if they can take this one as well.

Huk has some really annoying flaws in the attitude he presents his analysis and seems to thrive on feeding his ego as a former top pro or getting predictions right yeah. But his analysis is pretty on point, he has good insight into teams, and the fast pace of the show means he doesn't get to be as annoying!

These guys are WAY better than the other casters barring the ESL guys when they're on a good day, and the small errors will iron themselves out over the tournament. The technical aspect and their flow is just far and away above the others, and the analysis is there even if it isn't totally in depth. It doesn't need to be though because they throw it back to the desk and they're doing well.

Shows that ZP and Huk are great on the analyst desk as well imo, where ZP belongs. Rachael is working well as a host too when I've not been a fan before, I'm impressed with the overall show plan and how cleanly it's being executed.

I think he means, "how did they lose against a misfits with 2 stand-ins?" rather than how did they lose to Misfits.

Thanks. Just nice to hear people can be bothered to read them!

Well that didn't last long! #FaZeup

numlocked vs Zebbosai for last place at gamescom :< this group was nasty

iseries is now running at the same time as the Overwatch Open Regional Finals, so that will kill almost all of the top teams participating unless they're in Group A or possibly B.

Nice preview to the storylines, enjoying it. Making me more hyped to watch tomorrow!

I'm not sure whether that's an error in translation, a difference in playstyle, or perhaps Korean teams classifying something like Zen as offense when we would call it a support. This is what was on their official announcement however and I haven't been able to clarify with the players or a match replay.

He stated in protalk that it was a bug. I suspect he meant a flick in the buggy sense rather than "he flicked".

Apologies, has been fixed.

Admirable wrote half as much in his whole article as Mack chugged out in one quote

That could not be further from what I've seen Mendo do so far. He went from team to team, never controlling one or trying to cut his way to the top (and still got to the top and stayed there the longest so far), and this team that he stuck with was always built around players with potential. It was never about getting the best players - I mean it shows in their results and maybe he should have done what you accuse him of but so far there's nothing backing your view up.

Can they live up to the name? Should be interesting to see how much a move to NA affects the swedes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-noRi84zX0

As the title says, it's pretty interesting and insightful. Would like to see more of these but I can understand that people don't wanna give their "read" of the game away to competitors.

Site looks incredible, really slick.