We know from experience that there's a ton of content out there for Overwatch, more than you could reasonably digest and enjoy in a normal week. I spend far too much time following the game and it’s more than I can keep up with some days. Checking each site religiously and browsing the subreddit ‘til your fingers are bloody pulps is one option, but here at over.gg we’re going to try and make it easier for you.

Looking outside our own doors, we’ve picked over all of the week’s content to give you a showcase of the best. This Picked Over feature will run every week and it’s not a comprehensive review by any means - this is just some of our favourite content that we’ve read, watched, or otherwise experienced in Overwatch from the 6th to the 12th of November.

If you've skipped over some of the following pieces or just not happened to see them, we can personally recommend them to you. Make some time in your day for these beauties.

The OverView #33 with Nate Nanzer, Blizzard Global Esports Director (ChanmanV)

OverView Nate Nanzer

The regular podcast with ChanmanV, Fishstix, and Jason Kaplan this week featured special guest Nate Nanzer, the Global Esports Director from Blizzard. Everyone had a swarm of questions following the announcement of the Overwatch League; whilst this interview doesn't answer all the specifics and doesn't touch the drafting process, Nate does expand on the ethos of the Overwatch League and what Blizzard are aiming for in depth.

Definitely worth watching this YouTube video if you have reservations based on LCS, flashbacks from CGS, or just want more of a grasp on Blizzard's long term plans for the OWL.

Nate Nanzer: ...What we hope by having these local teams is we get to a world in a few years where every team has home games. It gives fans more of an opportunity to engage with esports. Right now, the only way you ever get to watch esports live is if you live in Los Angeles, Seoul, Shanghai, or Berlin. It's the only place where there's ever regular esports competition. There's millions of kids around the world who would love to go an esports event, buy a jersey, sit down and engage with fans, go to a fan meet-and-greet, and watch the tournament, but they just don't get the opportunity because it's really expensive to travel to those cities.

So we think, eventually, we'll get to the point where we'll have teams actually playing matches - like home games - in those cities with home fans and what that's gonna do is unlock significant amount of potential revenue for teams in terms of local sponsorships, in terms of merchandising, tickets, concession...

HarryHook, The Most Underutilized Player in the World (GAMURS)

HarryHook article

Josh 'Elbion' Tuffs has been producing a number of good articles over at GAMURS, and this week he had a very interesting proposal: Is HarryHook wasting his potential by playing Lucio, despite being great on that hero, simply because he could excel on higher impact roles? The point of this piece is not whether you think EnVyUs should make a switch or Harry should search for more responsibility - it's to provoke thought on resource allocation and potential within a team environment.

Perhaps Lucios are forever doomed to be viewed as second-class citizens, fit only to call while mashing their forehead across the keyboard with the monitor unplugged.

HarryHook is like the majority of Lucio players where he has to focus on carrying the game through non-damage dealing aspects of his play. Sound Barrier timing, speed boosting to push advantages, and positioning to stay safe and keep his healing aura up. But unlike the rest of his Lucio compatriots, HarryHook has the skillset to be a world class hitscan player.

Pros speculate on how the new Overwatch League impacts their world (Yahoo Esports)

Slasher interviews the pros about OWL

Slasher did a range of interviews at BlizzCon for Yahoo Esports (a lot of them worth watching), and this is a compilation of questions he asked about the Overwatch League. Talking to a variety of pro players, along with people like flame and ster, he asked them what they thought about the announcement, the combine, drafting, and regional aspect.

It's an interesting insight into how much the pros actually knew about the OWL, their excitement for the growth of the game, but also their concerns about what might happen in the future.

TviQ: I think it's amazing actually, just 'coz it creates so much stability assuming everything goes as planned, everything works. It's gonna create esports like a real sport and it will get more recognition as a real sport.

Surefour: I mean, I like the idea of it. They're trying to do it in a sporty way, and I think it'll help a lot of people that don't have a lot of time to invest into gaming. If they're a good player and they still climb the ranks, they just have to get invited to this combine and go to it for one day instead of continually grinding out matches, trying to find scrims. Then if you go to that combine, teams will be looking at you exclusively so you get to show your skill more.

Taimou: I just want to play with the people I like. I don't like the fact of being forced to play for some other team, other owners, other players...Even if I got triple of what I get right now, I would definitely still not do it, no.

Interview with Rogue CEO Frank: "I think a lot of the larger organizations missed the boat" (GosuGamers)

Rogue Frank interview

GosuGamers' scr1be likewise conducted a few interviews at BlizzCon, and this one is both a little unique and contains some curious nuggets of info - especially the final answer, which seems to suggest that Rogue will certainly be involved in the Overwatch League. While everyone was focusing on the player and community reaction to the OWL announcement, Frank gives his thoughts from a team owner perspective on franchising, the health of the scene, and its future.

Frank: I think a lot of the larger organizations missed the boat. I was still talking to a lot of the LCS owners when I entered the OW scene with Rogue. Because as a new organization, I felt we needed a new game to catapult us to become a big name. Most of the organizations at the time were wary of Overwatch mainly because they had heard some of the Overwatch League plans and rumors back then and did not want to enter before it was necessary.

So now they are feeling they missed the boat a little bit because Overwatch has grown at such a rapid rate that they would love to have a big team, but they are all already signed. I think it is clear top organizations have been trying to buy out teams from smaller organizations since Overwatch really started to get big. A month or two after launch, we were already seeing major sports organizations and esports organizations trying to buy out the Rogue team.

Team South Korea's Overwatch World Cup Press Conference at BlizzCon 2016 (theScore esports)

theScore esports recording of Team Korea's press conference

A frequent complaint in Korean-dominated esports is that Western fans of the game can't connect with them on a personal level; the language barrier makes them seem distant or lacking personality. The Korean players in Overwatch have none of that problem, as charismatic TaiRong leads his team in this video of the Press Conference and the Korean superstars talk about their scene, their team, and give us insight into them as people.

theScore esports created this recording of the press conference, but if you have a bit of patience waiting for translations, this video of another TaiRong interview by Slasher is also a great insight into this born team leader. What a cool dude.

Reporter: When you return to your individual teams it will be hard for this team to reconnect, so do you have any regrets?

EscA: I really like all my Lunatic-Hai teammates. But, when I came here and met these teammates everyone was so nice and everyone was so caring, so I really liked them. To be honest, if I could, I would take them all to Lunatic-Hai and play together. But, not being able to do that is too bad.

ArHaN: All the other countries had the chance to practice before coming to this event, but we couldn't do that and we came here and practiced. But, our result was so good that when I go back I'll miss them.

Special thanks to June Cho for designing our series banner!