I doubt this will be a sweep, but the whole game depends on which Laser Kittenz turns up. Hard to tell where they're at when only two games have been broadcast since their return from Korea, one garbage, one real good.

idk why I bother refreshing it just makes me sadder I can't watch

Gotta remember as well that Blank were a genuinely top team in the tank meta. They're one of the few to find their feet after transitioning to dive and be able to still hang at the top of their respective scene, but it's still a move downwards I think because they were previously pretty far ahead of the other OPC teams.

I would believe my reports tbh. He's trialling!

That argument makes very little sense given EnVy have had the easiest route to the semifinals by far of any team - they've only faced X6 twice, once losing in a close game, once dominating, and then beaten a struggling Meta Athena in groups. Other teams in groups were BK Stars and RG Wings. Couldn't have planned a simpler route this season almost.

It could quite easily be 4-2 nV at the end but I don't agree that it would be shocking if KDP won, or that they have had an outstandingly easy road. They could have very quickly gone out in groups and their performances against L-H and Rogue should not be forgotten. Also think you're mad underrating Mighty AOD, they were a good team stuck in a horrible group.

Ah I forgot there is another stage to the NA Contenders, my bad. Thanks for the correction.

The nice thing about this format from BLANK's pov is that today's games don't matter at all if they can now reset. Yes, they now have to win two bo7s but it's much easier to come back in such a long, drawn-out format. If they really did get a read on FW here, they might improve in the second two bo7s. I'm guessing not, but I wouldn't expect them to get 4-0d again.

Yeah far better, I think they would have won. KDP's backline is squishy, they don't have a way to punish L-H's tanks, and I don't think their dive would have won out.

I can't get a read on nV really so no idea how that game will go against KDP. nV don't seem to have a single style so far, more of a mix of stuff so I'm not really sure at all there.

Seems unlikely that KDP will be able to win against L-H in a final though with L-H's newfound style, even though KDP play more aggressively with both their excellent DPS players which works better into the Sombra. I'm not sure how you stylistically crack the L-H style though other than perhaps going full aggro triple DPS and banking on winning against rjh and tobi. Or playing a load of Sombra yourself to lock off healthkits and have the EMP.

This was not about aggression of L-H or lack of preparation against a top team imo. Lunatic-Hai counter-stratted them as they did with LW Blue. The pressure on DongHyun forced Mano to be more aggro than usual, then he was focused, they remove the tanks then pick off the back line. They didn't once dive the supports, always focused on killing Mano and DongHyun early with hacks.

Miro was turning to focus Mano constantly after baiting him to jump, Gido focused on de-mechs with EscA hacking, and Ryujehong was getting massive damage into Mano and ArHaN.

They put lots of pressure on ArHaN simply through Ryujehong and Tobi being so damn good, he and Mano couldn't get picks in their counter dives. Forced him to switch to Tracer and he had to just play passive and block Gido and EscA instead of getting picks or aggressive wipes.

Annoyingly I'm sure the narrative being spun will now be that AF.Blue were just overrated but they weren't. Just got tactically demolished and matched in terms of talent. The Sombra comp used like this to focus tanks is scarily good, forces teams to play aggressively and then they can soak up the aggro because their focus and back line is so good. L-H have found their own niche.

APEX seeds foreign teams in the lowest tier directly causing groups of death. It is highly possible to avoid this and should not be used as an indicator that such matters are unavoidable or statistically probable.

Seeding was bust because it puts the quarterfinalists from day one above the winners from day two, ignoring the fact that it's single-elimination with enormous arms of the bracket. Open qualifiers this large have unavoidably bad seeding, but the open format was actually the best way of holding the event given its scope and aims. The schedule afterwards was not.

Is the only advantage for Blank the fact that they're the "home" side in two of the three bo7s? As in they get to pick one extra map, twice, across 21 maps? Very minor advantage for an eleven week season or however long it was.

Always thought they needed a strong shotcaller who understands the dive meta and then new tanks, not to remove their supports. Now, they're gonna need somebody unreal on Genji/Tracer plus a good Zen/Ana and a shotcaller.

Maybe use big $ to tempt Architect from CONBOX (or anyone from runaway), grab Epzz and CrusaDe on support. Something like that. Gonna have to import imo.

I believe they are using the same "region" in that they're both on the same patch and would be updated as one, like PTR. Contenders is online so I am not sure whether it's even possible to use Professional Region in that case.

Gotta imagine WC and OWL will run something similar, but WC used real LAN last year so I think OWL will as well if the resources are available or they make it easier.

It's currently on the Hanzo buff patch, pre-Roadhog nerfs. You can tell simply by watching the apex/opc games.

Perhaps delaying so that janus and WhoRU can be back with their teams? One can only hope!

No, AF.Blue is already through to the semifinals. The bracket will be flipped once it gets to semis, so winner of this plays KDP and winner of LWBlue vs L-H plays AF.Blue.

Either team could take it to be honest but I think only X6 has a chance against KDP, EnVyUs' current style is very defensive and I think birdring and rascal will treat it as a playground. Gotta put pressure on them to win.

Zappis relegated to D.Va?

No they were streamed in HND and from KAFEEE's pov in contenders qualifiers. 123 have literally never been streamed.

Strange impression imo. Whenever you see his interactions (translated) with the team or with the coach, he is always talking quite flippantly towards the older players - at least when you take that in the context of Korean societal norms. He also mentioned a while back, I think at the end of APEX when they won, that he had been talking back to the coach or something and now realised how much he should respect him. I always got a vibe that he was a bit of a cheeky kid, at least in Korean terms. Could have been something totally different though!

Mano might also be a better Winston than Miro. There are a few Winstons in Korea who I think are as good or potentially better than Miro, people have caught up with all this dive.

Cloud9 not making the same mistake of running Rein into Hammers. Outplaying them here with dive vs dive.

It's not done on map record, unlike TaKeOver. It's based on wins/losses/draws with head-to-head and then map record as tiebreakers.

So they'd have needed a strong performance on the 2nd day of groups but not a total domination to make 2nd place.

LG Evil against the second best team in their group, utterly dumpster them and make TO look straight bad. Avast rigged the groups!

Dropping these NWA references like f bombs in a rap single.

Mafu actually looked pretty decent on both DVa and S76 throughout this series.

Huge results today from 123, unreal stuff. So unfortunate that we haven't seen these guys on stream at all yet!

no haffi no win xd

so it's actually better for both teams to agree to draw than for one to win

O

K

Literally zero effect on pneumothorax and contact sports can even make it more likely. Stay indoors guys.

This would be incredibly weird. Never seen MekO play Winston and the team very rarely plays triple DPS anyway. Think the only time they did it was single support double tank. My money would be on getting rOar in again from LW Red.

Very unfortunate for janus and the team, almost impossible for them to show their full potential here.

People may have known ahead of time :eyes: gotta keep SOME surprises though right

Great article​, really good read.

Is left guy left handed?

Mind.

Blown.

I doubt they'll put Sinatraa on Genji more often; Carpe played a lot of it in BK Stars and he's pretty good, keeping Sinatraa on Tracer is gonna be way better for this team.

To be honest I'm most confused by how Midnight fits in here - as a Zarya/D.Va replacement that lets them run triple DPS if required? Selfless is p weird in that emongg plays winston and would be the guy to do that normally. Not quite sure what's going on there. Then again I haven't watched Rise Nation in a while because they've always played offstream, so maybe Midnight has some other hidden qualities.

Every group in NA except B is stacked, but a lot of the teams that are considered good and make the groups look "stacked" are inconsistent. Depends which teams show up but if they're all performing at a good level then A, C, and D should be insane.

In Europe, group B will be interesting if Misfits don't improve but otherwise A and B should just be battles of the tier 2 teams for second. Group C is very even and should be awesome but that's mostly because there's no top team in there. Group D has talented tier 2 teams but I expect them to lose out unfortunately because Movistar and Cyclowns should be very good and make them appear worse.

Should be a great game, can't see the winner taking it over Cyclowns however.

Sure, I'll agree there that it didn't capture the PR damage to one of Blizzard's core components.

I literally don't know any teams in the arm just underneath LDLC - the one with Team eSporters Cyberathletes and Team Bounty Hunters in it. One team will get a free place in Contenders from that arm it seems. Gotta agree the seeding was kinda fucked, just one of the inherent issues with big open qualifiers.

Misfits have beaten Movistar Riders in three separate series now - PIT groups, TaKeOver groups, Contenders qualifier - despite Movistar progressing much further than them in the first two via double elim. Bogey team in the making, Misfits always light up when they're playing these guys.

Should be really good, Misfits look on point today but Movistar were also a little shakier in their game at TaKeOver imo.

Your post is undoubtedly more accurate but it literally defeats the point of using an analogy because you've just removed all the known context from FIFA & football and just substituted terms. That's not an analogy and doesn't help people understand how this punishment would work elsewhere.

Plus any argument about defying terms of service has no place in this discussion as that was clearly not the primary factor relating to size of punishment - otherwise many others who defy the TOS (of which many pros do many minor things on stream including throwing with friends) would get similar levels of punitive measures. It was far more about his attitude, trying to persuade others to do the same, stature in the community, and the bad PR it gives the game overall.

To respond to somebody earlier in the thread as well who was shocked I would "defend" him and they had to "explain" to somebody involved in top OW, it's quite obvious that he required dealing with. Much as one might question a 10 year jail sentence given to a thug who committed assault, you can debate the sentence without defending his actions. These kind of punishments are not codified and are open to opinion and interpretation (again, ANALOGY).

Clearly many believe that the size of this punishment was deserved. I think it ranges on the high side and will be ineffective as a deterrent to the overall community of throwers as they are nowhere near as high profile. For other pros though, this sends a clear message that large-scale fucking about will not be tolerated. It'll also hopefully send a wake-up call to dafran to get his shit together. Unfortunately slams Selfless' OWC chances into the dust in all likelihood, but one could argue the org should have done more to get on top of the situation earlier perhaps. Hard to tell with such a bull-headed guy.

This should be a really good game, very interested to see this result.

Now we really get to see how much Laser Kittenz have improved in Korea and with their new roster.

I have high hopes they can be tier2/1 EU but decent possibility they're just throwing money into a canyon.

Gotta go 3-1 L-H

Mate what is with all these good looking people. CaptainPlanet is ripped!

https://i.imgur.com/9LWGS3a_d.jpg

If you want an analogy, this is more like Ronaldo hosting a TV show where he plays some casual football with some mixed amateur teams at the park. He then refuses to play, acts like a dick, and wanders around playing Pokémon Go instead on the field, losing the matches for all his teams and fans.

Sure there would be penalties required, especially if he made it more likely for others to fuck around and you want to try and make an example of him, but I doubt FIFA would find it reasonable to ban him from all football for 3 months. It's a crazily large punishment that will hopefully never have to be repeated again. I hope it works as a deterrent due to its disproportionate impact.

Great article Pesto!

I think X6 will give them a bit of a challenge, maybe take a map. Pretty sure AF Blue made their group look really weak because they're sick.

If I had to guess, it seems more likely that it's something legal than arbitrarily designed to region-lock. Idk though, maybe it's because there's something in the future planned for South/Central America and not South Africa/Egypt though.