Why I'm excited for Overwatch League - TheWarmWind's Blog

TheWarmWind's Blog

Why I'm excited for Overwatch League

Posted on December 15, 2017 at 03:59 PM.

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Imagine yourself at the World Cup of Overwatch, watching high up in the stands of the new arena at the LA convention center. A match has just started, just over a minute has past. People are still finding their seats.

Yet the distinct sound of a Genji ultimate rings through the stadium, and the crowd suddenly erupts. The sound they make is not quite cheering. That is reserved for the small but dedicated South Korean fanbase sitting in the front rows.

The sound is more of utter shock and surprise. Team France, known better as team Rogue in the professional circuit, and considered one of the best teams in all of Overwatch, has just been wiped out.

The culprit? A 17-year-old South Korean who goes by the handle Fl0w3r. As the play finishes, Fl0w3r�s Genji stays perfectly still, putting away his blade without looking back at his handiwork, like he�s from one of the anime shows that likely inspired the cyborg ninja character.

Maybe Fl0w3r just needed to shake off the tension from his bold yet beautiful play. More likely he was showboating for the crowd. But maybe, just maybe, he was giving the audience a chance to catch up and realize what had just happened. They all needed a moment there.

France ended up being steamrolled by South Korea, just like many other teams on South Korea�s inevitable march to victory. Many excused France�s defeat. They haven�t had much time to practice lately. They aren�t used to the new way the character Mercy plays. They don�t have as much to prove.

But this was the only team at the world cup that was a team for a long time, and a dominant one at that. The rest of the teams only had a short amount of time to meet and greet, and come together as a team. Maybe it was all the things that the apologists said, but a part of me can�t help but suspect that Fl0w3r�s fantastic play shook France, and they just never recovered.

There was just no stopping South Korea. The skill, talent, and ability to click as a unit was so obvious from the tense opening round with USA to the Grand Final vs Canada. There was no stopping them and everyone knew it. It�s rare in any competition to see such hopelessness in a team that reaches the Grand Finals, but Canada had trained with South Korea in preparation for the event. They knew what every other team at the competition didn�t. These guys bend, but they will never ever break. They are on another level.

Yet watching them I couldn�t help but get excited for the upcoming Overwatch League. The OWL isn�t like the world cup. It holds more in common with the NHL or MLB, with contracts and trades and cities with players who could be from an entirely different part of the world. OWL is about owners building a team with the best players they can find. Finding not only the right players, but the right players to fit the roles you need, will be important. Team dynamic will be emphasized in a playing field were some characters can fly and others can blink through time. Fiction makes for a heck of a competition.

That dominant South Korean team will be sundered in two, with superstar support pairing Ryujehong and Tobi, along with off-tank Zumba heading to play for hometown Seoul Dynasty, while the Tracer specialist Saebyeolbe and main tank Mano have the unfortunate �honour� to play for one of the worst named teams in history, the New York Excelsior.

The multi-talented DPS superstar Fl0w3r won�t be part of the OWL this year, unfortunately. OWL has a strict 18-year-old restriction, but in a way, it creates even more intrigue, as the hunt to pursue his flexible talent will create an off season as tense as any draft or free agency from any other sport. Will there even be a draft? Or will a team just dump a crazy contract on him? How will OWL deal with potential team disparity? We�re already seeing triple digit contracts. Is there a limit to this?

Even more exciting is the playing field. While a few teams really do stand out, the talent really does seem to be evenly spread. The team that wins will likely not be the team with the biggest name, but the team that comes together the best. The aforementioned Seoul Dynasty is an obvious pick, having dominated the pre-OWL pro scene for a long time as LunaticHai. There is no denying that having the two best support players in the world in Ryujehong and Tobi is a massive advantage, and the tank pairing of Zumba and Miro is nothing to sneeze at either. But cracks have started to show in the armor, with the team losing their last tournament as LunaticHai, struggling against the classic deathball composition.

Meanwhile, the Dallas Fuel, what was once EnvyUs, are back on the rise. When the Overwatch tournament scene first started, EnvyUs was the undisputed master, thriving on the deathball strategy. They fell into disrepair when dive became king, but continued to adjust, slowly over time. It was if they knew the meta would eventually even out.

And here we are, fresh out of the Mercy meta and into a new one that looks very balanced, just in time for OWL. Deathball, dive, split-squad, they all seem viable, and no team is readier for that to be true it than the Fuel. Adding in Korean talent in the form of EFFECT was an obvious move, but by taking full advantage of the roster size to fill in the holes around their classic deathball strategy is where their true brilliance lies. Picking up popular streamer Seagull will not only give them an effective flex player who can work unconventional strategies, but it will also win them more than a few fans.

Sure, Seagull will likely spend most of his time on the proverbial bench for the Fuel, but cheering for him reminds me of being a Toronto Blue Jays fan cheering for the likes of John �Jonny Mac� MacDonald or Minanori Kawasaki. He�ll likely never be a superstar, he�ll spend most of his time �riding the pine�, but the effort, passion, and personality that he brings to the game is infectious. Everybody wants to be this guy�s friend, and the fact that he could be real asset to the Fuel couldn�t have me more excited. His play in contenders (the tournament held to showcase potential teams to potential owners) showed his value for a team that can properly utilize his talents. It�s stories like his that get me the most excited for OWL.

There are many other teams of interest too. The Los Angeles Valiant have a deep and varied roster. Both the London Spitfire and the New York Excelsior have drafted players exclusively from the promised land of South Korea, where e-sports is a way of life and the best players have the equivalent celebrity status as rock stars. The Houston Outlaws have flexible DPS Jake, tank CoolMatt, and support player Rawkus, three of the six members of team USA, the one team that came the closest to showing that South Korea was in fact mortal.

The level of investment is unprecedented. Blizzard is taking a huge risk investing this much in Overwatch e-sports. But it�s understandable, seeing the potential that Overwatch has to be a platform of entertainment. The level of excitement and energy at the World Cup was staggering, and that was with everyone knowing in some part of their soul that South Korea was going to win. In a league where it is anyone�s game, the plays will be that much more exciting, and the stories that emerge will be that much more meaningful.

Fans of the game have particular reason to get excited. Blizzard has hinted at a in game system, where following and cheering for certain teams will grant players exclusive in game rewards. It�s a brilliant marketing strategy and a good way to get more fans from the most likely source: the game itself.

But the new Overwatch League represents something more. Never before has an e-sport attempted to present itself like sports before it have. Never has there been an official league in this capacity, or teams representing cities as it is in the NFL or any other major sport. Never before have phrases like �league minimum salary� or �roster spots� or �utility bench player� been used in the realm of e-sports. This is the grand move, the sign that e-sports is done dipping its toes in the water and is ready to dive in.

Find out if they sink or swim. Stage 1 begins in the new year on January 10th.