Time for a necro: knowing what we know now, which of these teams would be the best (assuming they played during season 2)? I'd probably go with Volamel's team (Detroit), if only because he didn't specify which players would be starters, so he gets the benefit of the doubt over RadoN (Gangnam) who benched Twilight and Decay.

Second Wind, Phase 2, First Generation, Second Generation, Square One, and now, finally, Third Impact.

no engineer no win

I'd probably go with either Haksal or Twilight, but DDing wouldn't be bad either.

So, rookie of the year is probably going to produce a better result for who the mvp is than the actual mvp. Nice.

I'm curious as to why a team with EQO would trade for another brig player, but I guess Kyb would be a good option if for whatever reason EQO wasn't playing. Maybe they can trade for Fusions or Kruise and slam teams with the 3 brit meta.

The showdown to determine the fate of all of Overwatch, at least until they play again in playoffs.

your move, every other team composition

Alternative slightly less hot take: NYXL is an extremely inconsistent team and judging Dallas'/Taimou's performance based on a singular match is useless.

Chengdu number 1 I guess

The big worry comes from the fact that not all of the queues are going to be the same length. Especially at lower levels, the DPS queue time will be 5-10 times longer than tank queue time. Hopefully this will encourage dps players to bite the bullet and learn other heroes, but in a worst-case scenario a decent proportion of the player base might just stop playing.

Well, most teams just lose to Titans and Shock anyways, and if you forced teams to declare starting lineups before the ban phase, you eliminate the problem of shock having the best Tracer player (I'm assuming you're talking about Striker). The issue ends up being that you just don't get to see the best players on their best heroes. Imagine how much less fun games would be if everyone just always banned Zen against Jjonak. Or if DDING and Jinmu never got to play Pharah.

If the goal was to get rid of goats, this is probably the worst way to do it. You could better solve the "problem" while simultaneously allowing for creativity in comp choices by simply deleting brig.

Wait but DPS is a main tank player

I never realized I could want a player to somehow get signed to OWL this much. All of the casters would cower in fear at the prospect of having to say DuDuDuDuDuDu on stream.

I mean if Violet is such a good flex support how could rebellion lose contenders now? It'd be like XL2 having UltraJjonak!

nLw have already clinched their spot in contenders and as such casters will have to say their team name without laughing throughout the entirety of the season.

Mayhem Academy to follow?

S Tier
VAN
SFS

A Tier
NYXL

B Tier
LON
GLA
SEO
HZS

C Tier
DAL
PHI
SHD
BOS
TOR

D Tier
CDH
GZC

E Tier
ATL
PAR
LAV
University of Waterloo

F Tier
HOU
WSH
FLA

Vancouver out here speedrunning this series. Two 100-0's and a full hold.

It makes the site not a quite as much of a financial burden for enigma and you can ignore the betting stuff fairly easily

Yuki coming in hot to pull off the upset

Vancouver and Shock are just a tier above everybody else at this point. Not much more to say.

Florida kinda looked better today than they have in the past. Winning control against Philly is a start, and they were fairly competitive on King's Row and Junkertown. If Swon starts playing better and Saya gets more comfortable on brig, the Mayhem could at least pass the University of Waterloo and climb out of the bottom tier of teams.

Unless Gladiators legion sign a new player this will be the contenders debut for xQc

Is Kruise really a feeder?

I miss seagull, runner, kresnik, and the crazy shenanigans of hero limit 0. Also I loved the 2016 world cup and how the US went up against the Koreans with Ster on Ana against Jehong and how Muselk's Australia team somehow got a win.

One thing to add is that the stadium itself won't actually open until 2021 so next season the fusion will have to play in an existing location in Philly.

https://twitter.com/ComcstSpectacor/status/1110273537938522113)\

cool to see the Rascal redemption arc getting another chapter

Good to see I was at least right about one of my predictions. I may have been completely wrong about everything else, but I'll take it.

I don't think this is such a great idea. I mean, what will Florida do for away games? TviQ doesn't even have a pilot's license yet!

4 different regions represented on one team is pretty cool. Maybe Gaga can be the next Ameng

I hope the burger was good.

Dafran was... awful tonight. Decay didn't play at his best but he still managed to win the Zarya battle by a wide margin.

I guess NoSmite was the problem?

Soliciting a prostitute in the United States in 2019 is an action that makes human traffickers richer and increases the demand for sex slaves. Actions have consequences beyond the immediate here and now. Willful ignorance of the problems you are indirectly creating through your actions isn't just blinking, it's closing your eyes to the world entirely. He walked into the building knowing there was a very real probability he was paying a human trafficker to have sex with a kidnapped girl who wouldn't ever see a cent of his payment. This wasn't just hiring a prostitute to have sex with him discretely at a motel. The building was a brothel disguised as a spa run by multiple people in a highly organized system.

Depends on whether or not he knew the people running the whole thing were involved in human trafficking.

Alright, I used to have nothing against the 3-3 but after watching my boy Sayaplayer dome the heck out of the Hunters on Busan and still lose my heart kinda broke.

I'll admit it, Jinmu is one hell of a player

https://twitter.com/OWBeacon/status/1095233476796641280

I take back everything bad I've said about the new-look Dragons, this team is going to dominate.

because the match doesn't matter and they want to let Danye have some fun would be my guess

Yeah, to be honest I hadn't taken the time to learn everything I possibly could and actually watch a lot of the players joining in season 2. Come to think of it, I'm sort of like the king himself, MYKL, when it comes to my opinions. I'm overly confident, I like to cause controversy, and I want to get things out as fast as possible. So, I guess, treat my posts as if they were coming from him.

As for the Defiant, I remember climax being O2 Ardeont's best DPS player from what limited action I saw of them, which is why I didn't think of Ivy and Stellar as stars, but I could be wrong about that. Neko was good in S1 for Uprising, but I always thought the stars of that team were Gamsu, Striker, and to a lesser extent, DreamKazper before he got kicked out of the league.

I'd agree on the idea that the world cup shows us something about GOATS play, but it's also important to recognize that the nerf to brig makes stun-slam less important, and could completely change the way Zarya is played in that composition.

Profit and birdring both play widow at a roughly equal level. They're both extremely flexible players and Birdring ends up playing more because of Profit's value on other heroes.

Dang it, I knew I wrote something wrong :0. Honestly, the Korean bias is partly me not wanting to put Houston higher because people would think I was crazy and partly me not wanting to completely write off China as a weak region, leading to the inclusion of Charge and Spark where they are. As for Philly, I submit the opinion that Carpe is overrated. Profit can do everything Carpe does at the same level while being much more flexible. When you look at Carpe's signature heroes, Tracer and Widow, there are plenty of players who can outclass him. (SBB, Striker, Profit, and maybe Effect are better Tracers. Pine, Sayaplayer, and Profit are better Widows).
I wish I knew more about each team's brig play, for sure. We've never really seen any of the s1 teams run GOATS, which is why I put Vancouver as high as I did. They're the one team we know for certain can run GOATS and win with it.

He's only getting playing time because Chengdu couldn't sign a player who managed to get himself cut from both LA teams

1. NYXL: They were the best team throughout the majority of season 1, and the addition of Nenne makes them even stronger. Their DPS line is better than anyone else's by virtue of sheer depth of talent, and their supports are both MVP caliber players. To top it off, the coaching and management are second-to-none.
2. LA Gladiators: If roar can fill Fissure's massive shoes, the team will dominate. Decay is a huge upgrade over hydration. Surefour could very well be the best NA player in the league. Their coaching and strat-calling seem to be a bit unique, but it's paid off for them in the past.
3. Seoul Dynasty: Jehong can play Ana again, and he's about to remind all of us just how good he is on that hero. Tobi can play Lucio again. Fissure gives this team 5 potential all-stars. If Munchkin can perform at a high level throughout the season, they will be a very tough out as long as Mercy and Zen don't become the only playable supports again.
4. SF Shock: Architect is probably the most underrated player in the league. The guy is a monster on flex dps. He will be paired alongside the most dangerous tracer player in the league, Striker. The Shock were a pretty decent team the last 2 stages of S1, going 11-9 across both stages, and they got 2 amazing upgrades in Striker and Viol2t.
5. Hangzhou Spark: Apparently, I was wrong, and Krystal and GodsB have hero pools that perfectly compliment one another. That makes this team an upgraded version of the x6 team that beat Runaway in Contenders KR S1. IDK and Guxue are nuts.
6. Vancouver Titans: Runaway + Harshaa = big wins. Not much else to say, really.
7. Guangzhou Charge: Hotba really impressed me during Philly's playoff run. He should bring a solid veteran presence to the core of a fairly good Meta Bellum team that will be augmented by one of China's best DPS players, Eileen.
8. London Spitfire: They were a mediocre team throughout most of S1 that caught a lucky hot streak in the playoffs and won 6 matches after being taken to the brink of elimination by an LA Gladiators team that was missing its best player. These guys did not show that they could do much besides sit back and pray that Profit would carry them. On top of that they didn't add anything of value to their roster in the offseason. The only reason these guys aren't even lower is because Profit is so damn good that relying on him to hard carry is a viable strategy.
9. Houston Outlaws: What? Houston Outlaws in 9th? Ahead of Philly Fusion? Allow me to explain: The regular seasons for Houston and Philly were almost identical, Houston had a better map record but Philly won two more matches, with philly doing better the stages when Mercy/Widow dive was the only viable comp, and Houston doing better when more comps were available (they won games in stage 4 running muma on Brig with no main tank!). Philly's playoff hot streak came at the expense of a Boston team that was in complete disarray and had gone 4-6 in stage 4 and an NYXL team that was running outdated comps with bad strategies. They were then promptly rolled 6-1 by the Spitfire in finals. In addition, Houston arguably had the hardest schedule of all the teams in S1, with the four teams they didn't get to play 4 times having a combined record of 12-28 in the stages they didn't play Houston. To top it all off, Philly had a strictly worse offseason than Houston, losing two valuable players and gaining absolutely nothing. I've said this about Houston before and I'll say it again: they are not a patch team. There is no evidence to suggest that they can't make playoffs running anything other than the very specific Mercy-Winston-DVa-Zen-Tracer comps that were mandatory in stages 2 and 3. Oh, and they also picked up a tracer player, so they'll probably be able to run that comp just fine too.
10. Paris Eternal: I'm going to trust you guys on LHCloudy and that he's a good player. The team doesn't have any major holes, but aside from soon they don't have anyone particularly exciting. For all the hype about Shadowburn, he's never really shown anything out of the ordinary besides his Pharah. On the one hand, daemoN and Seita are proven good coaches. On the other, well, KyKy's reputation speaks for itself.
11. Philly Fusion: See Houston Outlaws above
12. Dallas Fuel: If Effect plays like old Effect, they could finish much higher, but if he blows up again, the team could have another meltdown.
13. Atlanta Reign: Dafran and Gator are trouble waiting to happen, and once Dafran inevitably gets benched, their DPS play will probably not be great. That being said, they have a pretty solid tank line so I don't see them crashing too hard.
14. LA Valiant: They're a decent team, but they'll be playing most of their games 5v6 since KSF and Bunny are hot garbage.
15. Shanghai Dragons: Despite their wealth of talent on DPS and support (coma is insane), they retain the tank line and ownership from an 0-40 team. I don't trust them to do well.
16. Toronto Defiant: They're a mid-tier contenders KR team without a star or even particularly good synergy.
17. Florida Mayhem: How far will Sayaplayer go until he reaches his breaking point and joins a team that can actually use his talents? Will bqb end up feeling the same way? Will any of their coaches make it to stage 3?
18. Boston Uprising: The three bottom teams all have one thing in common: terrible dps players. Though Boston's are the best of the three by a considerable margin, Aimgod is a disaster on Zen so...
19. Washington Justice: Janus and SanSam are a decent tank line, but remember what I said about Shanghai? Picking up a DPS player from an 0-40 team is a bad idea. Pairing him with Stratus or Corey is even worse.
20. Chengdu Hunters: Baconjack is a complete joke. There is no way in hell a player from a PAC team that consistently got destroyed by mediocre Koreans and who hasn't even played in a over a year belongs in OWL. He will play alongside Jinmu, a mid-tier contenders CN player and YangXiaoLong, a guy who quit for PUBG. No amount of clutch support plays from Yveltal and Garry/Kyo will save them from their massive feeding.

Good ol' Harb coming back to get that chicken contendies dinner

Wait, what? Why'd they cut Tizi and Woohyal if they were going to sign 2 Koreans anyway?

Chicago
Busan
Sydney
Berlin/Cologne/any large city in Germany
Milan
Tokyo
Rio/Sao Paulo/Buenos Aires/Mexico City

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.