I find that unlikely, btw FW has been scrimming against the top tier KR team, and by their own admittance they were getting absolutely crushed.

France might have a chance but I think KR are still the heavy favorites to win at Blizzcon.

Interesting, I didn't see much emotion in him just stating a fact. You must have mind reading capabilities then. It wasn't against the rules but it is taking advantage of the system in a way that I can only believe it wasn't designed to be.

I assume even you can appreciate that fact.

One question being if a team would actually throw to get a more favorable match-up at Blizzcon...It would defeat the spirit of the games so I'm not convinced but I honestly dunno.

"you just separated it in your brain because there are a lot of Asian viewers and they tuned only to watch their team play"

• Interesting assumption you make there, I image you know what I'm thinking to once again make a statement to which you lack insight.

At this point I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm trying to explain how we might get a better picture of the point you're trying to make vs the point others are trying to make because you can't seem to envision a situation where an opinion different from your might still be valid.

I'm actually going to pull back from trying to explain my point of view because you will either ignore my talking point or spin it to match your rhetoric. Even though I openly agree with some aspects of your arguments you tend to not be receptive to others so it makes conversing and debating with you either very frustrating, pointless, or impossible.

Yeah, I was searching for a date/time because I was pretty sure it wasn't gonna start during the OWC but never found em, so my best guess is next weekend.

Agreed, I'd much more looks forward to a good ol' NA showdown than a USA vs SK and a CAN vs TWN.

The week of Aug 14th probably means next weekend, I assume.

I understand, but what I mean to say is that if you separate Asian viewership from Western viewership you should get to see a better picture of the fluctuations that happen purely based on expected scores vs interesting match-ups.

As far as I can tell the greatest source of fluctuation in viewership is the Asian contingent. It's very possible that they don't care about expected scores or great match-ups and just want to see their representatives.

That should give us a better idea of where the data is headed. Blizzcon should somewhat even out those results just because of the magnitude of the event but I think we can expect similar spikes in viewership when the SK, TWN or CN teams are playing.

I think if we want to make that kind of comparison we'd have to isolate westerns viewers from eastern viewers. Then we can see the fluctuation for each group separately, or else we'd never have an appropriate comparison if one team has a much larger base viewership than the other.

Reading through all the points of references here these are the two trains of thought I believe are prevalent.

1. Results don't matter since people will only watch games with teams they like regardless of the expected outcome.

2. Result do matter because people will only watch games with teams they care about if the outcome is expected to be very obvious and lopsided.

Different spin on one subject and I think both are correct depending on how you look at it. Personally I think a 16 team tournament would also have been fine and probably would have yielded fewer blowouts, but at the same time reached fewer people in terms of national pride.

I prefer a higher level of competition, but Blizz might want to just generate as much potential interest as possible.

You're saying results have nothing to do with it, and I mentioned that expected stomping probably do bring lower views unless one of both of the teams are really fun/interesting to watch.

I think most people that aren't hardcore OW fans wouldn't be interested in watching a match that was predicted to be a horrendous massacre if it were not for the entertainment value of one of the teams. In my opinion the SK matches were an example of that. 4-0s were mostly expected but I think people still wanted to see how they were gonna do it after what they showed in that first match.

By the way, Remiska, I'm not sure how old you are, but you tend to sound like an angry 16 y/o when people disagree with you. You may want to fix that since it brings 0 value to your arguments and actually devalues the legit posts you make.

I don't understand the difficulty here.

It's a sound argument, as I mentioned the SK team was fun to watch because of how they play. I don't think any of the other expected blowouts generated as much interest.

Not sure how you can't see that side of the argument.

I think he means that aside from a few matches most weren't being looked forward to. With results being so lopsided and participating teams not having as much "it" factor as the SK team it's not weird to see interest for most of these matches dip.

I think the USA vs Taiwan match should have good viewership but the others probably won't because they don't really mean anything, aside from maybe the UK vs Germany one. Even then I'm not sure how much people in general care about it.

I think that even though Katowice had a lot of 4-0s, just seeing the Koreans play was fun, and the Canada vs Russia game was very fun to watch (for me at least). I think having more teams closer in strength and fewer blowouts, or more teams that dare to be creative like the SK team, though that may have been cause they could afford to do w/e they wanted, is what the matches need to garnish more interest.

I'm guessing that Blizzcon numbers should reflect this. Oh and I agree that spectating's been very meh for me. I'm not sure how much information non OW maniacs can get out of it so that might also have an impact on how interesting the game is after you've tuned in for a bit, or a previous match.

Must win for Team CC if they want to remain competitive early on in groups. They'll need to secure as many wins against the weaker teams if they want to give themselves the best change to move on.

Their fans are the 7th player. Kappa

Germany trying to one-up UK by absolutely destroying Belgium. Match was definitely less competitive than I thought it was going to be but it's good to see that the Germans were able to adjust and make things work so well for them.

Looking forward to see if they can bring it to UK and make a solid match out of it.

Another interesting match up, FTD looks solid in the Spring series groups but fell off in the playoffs while MY look like they've been able to improve since their short run in the playoffs as well.

MY have looked better as of late so we'll get to see if they can take down FTD and place confirm that they're at the top of the food chain with LGD.

Going off recent results I give the edge to MY in this one.

Pretty much went as expected, NZ has one more chance to maybe get a W tomorrow.

With both of these teams having performed like they did I don't think we can call Taiwan the heavy favorite, maybe a slight favorite, but team USA looks extremely good and very flexible.

This will probably just come down to execution and who can punish the other more whenever possible. I still think Taiwan has a slight edge given their more reactive play style but I can see this going either way.

Brazil should have been able to take Horizon but their ult management and engagements really gave that one away. USA just capitalized on every single mistake they were given/caused.

Very good match by USA but certainly a disappointing performance by Brazil as they just weren't able to take advantage of their opponent's mistakes at crucial times.

Guess he wasn't marketable enough for KR standards?

He should come to NA/EU, he'd be right at home!

Actually expected LGE to take this with ease considering that Skadi's only recent win was against IG Fire and that they failed to qualify for the main Spring Season event. Could have been quite the upset though it seems par for the course in the Chinese scene's roller coster ride of team performances.

Other than LGD and MY looking solid the rest of the field is fair game and playoff spots are up for grabs.

Both of these teams are inconsistent at best, and their match records kind of go in circles losing to teams that lost to ones they were able to easily beat down.

Not sure I'd quite call it an upset looking at both their match history but yeah, I would have expected ViCi to be able to take this one.

LGD looking absolutely dominant in this match and put on a clinic of "how to get revenge" on their opponents. A mirror of their Spring Group phase encounter with 1246. This now puts the latter at 0-2 which begs the question of if their Spring GF win was LGD having a bad day.

1246 now need to really step it up to avoid not qualifying or worst, relegation. As for LGD they look like they're back in form and I look forward to their matches against FTD and MY in particular.

After seeing both games yesterday I don't think UK's gonna lose a map until the playoff qualifier.

4-0 UK, imo.

If you mean the casting team they have to call them Chinese Taipei to not cause friction with China. It's a can of worms Blizzard would rather not risk the huge Chinese market over.

I believe most if not all references to the team on this website have been as Taiwan.

Does anyone have three stars yet? Other than Admirable and Sideshow with their 4. Cause I'm gonna make it my (no) life goal to claim that...

The winner of G1 vs H2 plays SK and G2 vs H1 plays Canada.

For the team Canada match up we'd be looking at USA, UK, Brazil or Taiwan in order of which I think is most likely. I didn't include the other group H teams before I don't think any of them can beat team UK.

My secret:
http://imgur.com/A58auIp

I think USA can bring very high numbers but it probably needs to be against a team considered strong. Brazil was a bit underwhelming today and I do think they're weaker than team USA but the viewership should still be relatively good compared to most matches today.

I'm kinda hoping the Sunday match just breaks shit open with what should be the most competitive match of these groups other than maybe UK vs USA.

Interesting changes but will they be enough? both Detonator squads were underwhelming in their last showings so hopefully this helps the KR unit but they have a lot of solid competition ahead.

If they make it, getting through challengers is going to be another big hurdle so hopefully the team is strong enough to make it through.

Long road ahead for these boyz.

lol, he's a boss.

I don't think the numbers will get much better for most of the other matches since even I'm not that vested in most of these, specially after seeing group H matches. I think the Taiwan vs USA should be the most viewed match of these groups probably followed by USA vs Brazil.

I'm actually thinking that only the UK has a real chance of making it to Blizzcon as the other teams are likely to get destroyed by Taiwan imo. That makes most of the matches in group H less interesting and/or meaningful, to me at least even though I'm still going to be watching.

Oh, and it's "Shanghai" <3

Looking forward to this match. I think LGD is likely to dominate but 1246 could always pull off another epic upset. I'm definitely getting up for this.

The match itself was a good one but as many ppl have mentioned here none of these teams look like they'll be able to handle the UK. Germany should get the 2nd seed but is likely to get destroyed by the first seed of group G, likely to be Taiwan, but really regardless of who that ends up being.

Germany seems to have the stronger team on paper, just going by the names on the roster but we'll see if Israel's ZenGaming squad will be able to leverage them being a full team and the synergy it brings.

I wasn't particularly impressed from what I've been able to see from Zen so I'm not convinced they can overcome the star power of team Precision German Engineering.

I think Germany will take this but I'm holding out for a surprise, or at least a deceptively tight match.

Twitch chat is permanently hidden for anything overwatch for me.

This is looking like the most competitive of all group phases since I can see at least three teams possibly being able to contend for 1st or 2nd but this is what I think it's gonna look like:

Group G

1. Taiwan
2. USA (Brazil is a very real possibility)

Group H

1. UK
2. Germany (Israel could also take this)

NZ and Belgium have pretty steep uphill battles to make it through with the latter's chances being a bit better but I'm not holding my breath for those.

I think team USA could take first since they look on point with there comp and roles but I don't see them as the favorites right now. In the end I still think that Taiwan and USA are the front runners for Blizzcon but wouldn't be that surprised to see a possible "upset".

It's gonna be a rough time for NZ, they're in a though group with three arguably stronger teams so they're going to have to scrape every map they can take to possibly make a difference and give themselves a chance.

This team looks real good on paper. They should be able to take it to the other three and then some. Let's hope they can come together better than they did last year, but I have a feeling they will!

Logix and SPREE are going to have to play out of their minds, their group is probably the one with the most apparent parity so anything is possible, but they gonna have to step up and make it happen.

Taiwan's play style is like poison to Brazil's, mainly because wait for your dive while Baconjack destroys your back line so Brazil's aggressive style was at a huge disadvantage.

Brazil came out strong on their King's Row attack phase but from what I can tell Taiwan was sizing them up and figuring out the best way to deal with them, as Eastern teams often do.

I'm expecting USA to make it and join their northern brethren at Blizzcon. NA battle let's make it happen boyz!

Jack Carrying the Bacon in Overtime.

This was a bit closer than I thought it would be which is a good thing for KDU, still not quite to the point where I think they'd make it to the SF but at least in possible upset range if they play out of their minds.

Welp, FTD winning was pretty much expected but I would have liked to see Team CC put up more of a fight. Note that they are a new team so synergy may not be quite on point yet but they'll need to do much better to have a chance at qualifying for the playoffs.

Convincing victory from MY as expected, will be looking forward to seeing how they do against the other top teams in the event.

Kind of expected LWR win though I did think it would be closer. GC Busan look like they haven't recovered from their poor Group Phase 2 performance from the challenger series. This could have possibly cost them the 2nd spot in this group as neither teams are likely to beat AFB and both should be able to handle ROX Orcas.

ROX is the unknown factor since they had a roster chance recently so things may go differently than I originally assumed for either teams.

Team USA took control and never let go. Not an unexpected result but certainly it was even more one sided than I thought it'd be.