Let's go Mega! The only non Korean team in group A.

A couple of examples:

If by chance Eagle Gaming qualifies for the finals, is Nico supposed to play in the same day both with his national team and his Contenders one (there's gonna be matches for both teams on thw 21st of September)?

Is not much different for NA, Zacharee, let's say Fusion University makes it to the finals, he'd have to play both for team USA and his Contenders team.

Not ideal also for other players who, despite having couple of weeks in-between, will have to play both in NA and in EU (Onigod is an example for Angry Titans)

So it's good that Contenders might get more LAN exposition, but why did it have to happen at the same time of the World Cup, in the same locations and why reducing the teams/region only to 2 (oinly the actual finals)?
https://twitter.com/owpathtopro/status/1019980923054387200

No matter the way I look at it, doesn't sound right to me...

EDIT: also why no LAN for SA Contenders or AUS?

GG London!

Apparently, but that shows why a 6 months long season followed by a break of almost 1 month before the playoffs, is not the best idea, see London and apparently NYXL on the other end of the spectrum.

I wish Valiant will win, but have this weird feeling...
Gladiators and Fissure managed to wake London up, they've always been potentially the scariest team albeit sloppy, but now...

Damn man, perfect setup!

Hmm Blank struggling this year

Psst we "stole" one of Switzerland's tanks, Luft aka Luftwaffe. (unless I'm completely wrong, but I'm pretty positive he's from Switzerland, Italian one but still..)
Funny stuff asides, I'd say Canada and USA are the favourites here? But gonna cheer for our EU and SA friends!

🕯️

And a real pity... GL both to the org and to the players!

Then again me and others are joking, but let's check NYXL win 6-0 on the 2nd day...

I honestly don't like the way they split the matches, as the first one means ALMOST nothing, couldn't they maybe split the 3 games on 3 different days?
Or have them all together in the same day (albeit this would be a bit hard on the players, but eh it's playoffs)

Agree on everything, as if it could be any different with the guy who knows everything about the EU t2-3 scene!
Just I hope to see Midna syncronize with the rest, in the latest games he was playing very good with his team.

"waking up" in an hour and a half, guess I'll sleep on the train to work...

Hope in the Italian guys is still there, but almost impossible group for us.
Btw still wish France had brought Asking, dude is really amazing.

Ouch that hurts (lost my job back then), but damn if it's true

Heard they were preparing for Boston? LUL

🐍🐍🐍

I think Modric sort of choked in the last 2 matches, NYXL hasn't completed teh season yet, but so far I'd go for Jjoank (even if what murasaki says is true).

Insane combo

So yes, no Fissure for the most important matches of the year, oh well

Oh ok, sounds weird, but thanks man!

Are they really not playing Fissure 'cause Iremix was practicing more/better before the playoffs?
Or there are other reasons and I missed them?

Let's go Cyclops!!!

Well it's good to see someone on the inside sharing his thoughts on this, even more so if most confirms what some/many member of the communities were already pointing out.

The main issue is that due to some (most) of those reasons OW managed to drive away e-sport's endemic orgs, it started in 2017 with the proonged "let's wait for OWL to kick off!" but is still going on (Envision).

Sure none of them will ever be able to compete with the salaries/support of an OWL organization, but at the moment is either those, or "playing for the glory", and since those few top tier organizations pay loads of money to be part of OWL, of course they want to scout and hire player that can bring more visibility and wins to them asap.

EDIT
Thanks for sharing this mate, I'm not much into Reddit
And second Edit, as an example, in 2016 there were worldwide about 140 non offical Blizzard tournaments, in 2018 there are 30ish

It's good to see Poko again.
GG Fusion!

Absolutely, it's probably just about how everyone preceives MVP, a matter of context, the best player in the league, or the MVP for his/her team?

First case its Jjonak no doubts imo, in the second it might still be him (not for me) but Fissure, Carpe or even Custa could be as valid candidates (if not better).

But again I'm Italian, we usually don't have MVPs, but player of the year, best player, etc... which removes the "valuable" part from the title, MVP gets used (not localized) for American sports (Basket, Hockey, Baseball, American Football, etc..)

I'm sorry, I fear something went really wrong to you, if that's the case, again I'm sorry, else... well f off mate.

Why again so late? :(

Yes my pov is biased as an European, but...
That's 2 AM CET (1 AM in UK), and 10 AM in Korea, what would be the difference it the matches started an hour earlier?

Would it change drastically to move the matches from 5 PM to 4 PM local time?

I personally always have issues understanding how to assign an "MVP" award, as there's no discussion, Jjonak is by far (in my opinion) the most astonishing player in OWL, but is that what MVP means to me?

Is Jjonak as crucial and valuable to NYXL dominance as it's, for example, Carpe to Philadelpia's wins?

If I replace Jjonak, let say, with Bdosin, will suddenly New York start losing more matches, or looking less dominant?

What if I remove Carpe from Phillie and replace him with Birdring at his peak?

Reinforce poggers

Who said I steal? I said I stopped watching NBA, and I will stop watching OWl if i'll have to pay. ;)

EDIT
I'm actually so against stealing that, in 2017 I even tried this, again:
https://imgur.com/a/tGBj9kN

But then again usually falling asleep in front of my PC at 2 Am (see I wake up at 5:30)

You are probably right (scratch the probably hehe), but how does that leave the NA scene?

I'm mainly speaking of the NA scene cause all Academy teams are there except the one who actually wanted to grow local talent.

Will there just be the T3-4 scene for NA young players? So basically no money, almost no brodcasts, etc?
Why should a young player decide to try and become an OW pro in NA?

Well everyone has his/her preferences on how to spend money, I prefer to spend it on my old parents, my house, my dog, videogames and some beers at the pub with friends.

As I did with the NBA, the moment I need to pay a monthly fee, to have the privilege to be up at 2 AM and watch 1/2 a match before falling asleep... well is the moment I stop watching it.

But weren't academy teams supposedly meant to grow local talent?

Yes I know why bringing Koreans is a smart idea, if you only care about winning prizepools, but shouldn't the main teams be there for that?

Same here, after a break (just from OWL) I'm now ready to enjoy the playoffs!. :)

It's called having the "physique du rôle", the guy is good looking, clean face, nice smile, and for sure has enough brain to back it of, when he doesn't munch a gum he's simply perfect for this kind of role.

As long as they'll keep streaming also in the future (once the current deal expires) on Twitch this can only be seen as a huge step forward.

Otherwise as an European, things could become more problematic (e.g. there's no way for me to watch all NBA's matches, that is without paying or resorting to tier Z quality illegal streams).

Called the Italian Jjonak, of course there's an abyss between the two, still Nisa is an amazing Zen, happy to see he's still in the Samsung family.

I don't know, besides my Italian side hoping for the real underdog of the group (Italy) I wouldn't consider PL, DE and NL so much lower than UK, FR if they click is a step above them all.

AzzurriOW ftw! Eh not likely.
Damn that group is hard, FR, UK, DE, PL, NL

This one's gonna be a great game!

GG CIS Hope!
On some maps way closer than one could imagine, and yes I'm becoming an Italian fanboy but Midna on Rei... Handing it to veterans like Mowzassa and Sharyk.

Sexy new logo for CIS Hope and they are the clear favourite, still...
Go WHO!

Quality might not be top, yet..
But gotta give credits where credit is due, these guys finally brodcast the huge scene that's not OWL and "main" Contenders.
GG!

Yep saw the sad news on their FB page, a pity, but sort of understandable.
An Italian :candle: for the boys!

Oh and thank you Scurbasaurus to bring light to all the smaller teams!

Give these guys (and AUS too) better prizepools Blizzard, pls!
Didn't you want OW to be global? Then let's make it really global, that's where money should be invested, the regions that have been sort of neglected so far.

This was a great game, GG LGD

The video is simply amazing...
I'm an AKM fan, but I would have probably brought Asking, the guy atm is really hot stuff.

And they did it! Yes ping was very likely part of the reason, but still... finally a winning JA team!
Besides I agree with the 2 funny casters (always found them funny, in a positive way), Blank will eventually get into playoffs anyway.

Go Cyclops!
I like BLANK, but damn Japan really needs a great team.

Samuraid looks like a nutty Rei.