|
 SCHEDULE | WATCH @ YOUTUBE GAMING | WATCH IT LIVE WHAT IS THE OVERWATCH LEAGUE? OWL is the premier esport league that’s home to the highest level of professional Overwatch competition. Unlike other esport leagues before it, OWL’s structure and format is modeled after traditional sport leagues like the NBA or MLB, i.e., franchised teams representing major cities from across the globe compete against one another over the course of a rigorous regular season, culminating with postseason playoffs. PREVIOUSLY ON SEASON 2 A rabid caprinae fever took over the league for three stages, which most people hated and found boring to watch, and it took Blizzard a major restructuring of the whole queue system in order to make it go away. They even made a skin to commemorate it. We are now at what many people agree is the make-or-break season for the League, as we're finally moving onto local homestands across the globe. With ongoing challenges like changes in sponsorships, a new broadcasting platform, the departure of the majority of the broadcast talent, major shifts on the path to pro and even an ongoing global outbreak, the future looks uncertain for the League in its third season.  THE TEAMS No teams have been added for this season. The teams have been grouped into conferences, with four divisions: Pacific Conference East      Pacific Conference West      Atlantic Conference South      Atlantic Conference North      Team rosters are capped at 12 player spots, and during matches, teams can sub in players between each map set. Check out the Overwatch League Liquipedia for information on each team including coaches, players, team owners, and more HERE THE HOMESTANDS The regular season kicks off this weekend on February 8th, with two homestands in New York and Dallas. Each team will play 28 total regular-season matches, which includes two matches against each in-conference opponent and one match against all out-of-conference teams. The regular season will consist of 26 weeks—with all matches played over weekends—and will include a break for All-Stars and a midseason tournament between Weeks 12 and 13. Each team will host at least two home weekend events during the season, with an additional 12 events—three per division—collectively hosted by teams in their home territories. Tickets are now available for most of the homestands.  As of this writing, the homestands that were to take place in China for February and March have been cancelled as a precaution for the ongoing coronavirus outbreak in China. The League has yet to announce their plans for these matches, so we don't know yet if they're playing the matches online, or playing them later in the year. Most of the chinese teams have relocated to Korea, in case the emergency escalates in the future; the Chengdu Hunters have elected to stay in China.REGULAR SEASON & POSTSEASON PLAYOFF FORMAT New in 2020, teams will play regular-season matches in a first-to-three format. Each match will open with control, and then teams will play hybrid, assault, and escort in an order that rotates across matches to ensure they are played evenly throughout the season. If a match reaches the fifth map, only control maps will be played until a team gets to three map wins. After every two maps played, teams will get a quick break to strategize. Starting March 7, we will see the addition of Hero Pools (ie hero bans). The League will make one tank, one support, and two damage heroes unavailable for selection during matches each weekend. The heroes will be randomly selected from a group of eligible heroes based on play-rate data from the previous two weeks of Overwatch League matches—only heroes that are being played regularly can be pulled from the next hero pool. No hero will be unavailable two weeks in a row. Hero Pools will not be used for the midseason tournament, the play-in tournament, playoffs, or Grand Finals; all heroes will be available for those matches. Teams will be informed of each week’s Hero Pool approximately one week in advance of matches. The 2020 postseason format is similar to 2019, with a play-in tournament followed by double-elimination bracket play culminating in the 2020 Grand Finals. The seventh- through 12th-seeded teams in the standings will qualify for the play-in tournament. The double-elimination bracket will feature the following eight teams: - The two top teams per conference as the top seeds (as determined by record with map differential as the tiebreaker) - The next four teams across both conferences as the three to six seeds - The two teams that advance from the play-in tournament as the seven and eight seeds ALL-STARS AND MIDSEASON TOURNAMENT The traditional All-Stars event will take place after Week 12, and it will feature an actual money pot in order to entice our possibly jetlagged heroes into making the trek wherever this will take. Stage playoffs are no longer a thing ever since last season, so instead we're getting a midseason tournament, which will feature the top four teams in the league: the top team from each conference and the next best two teams by record from either conference. In order to manage logistical requirements for teams around the world, the teams will qualify based on their record over their first nine matches in the 2020 season. Those teams will play in a single-elimination bracket, with the top seed picking their opening-round opponent. The time and place for this tournament has not been announced yet. CONTENDERS & PATH TO PRO Path to Pro has a ton of changes of their own that it's probably worth separating on its own post so see the next post whenever I finish writing it, I guess??? WHERE TO WATCH This year, the League is ditching Twitch for a new deal with Youtube Gaming as their exclusive broadcaster. This means you no longer will be able to follow matches through the usual Twitch channels! The League has been kind of mum as of what's going to happen with other broadcasting deals like the ones they had with ESPN, Disney and ABC. Because of this change, the tokens system and the all-access pass will not be active, for the time being.
LINKS & RESOURCES
Ignis fucked around with this message at 17:40 on Feb 8, 2020 |
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 10:13
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 21:49 |
|
|
(Reserved post for Contenders / Path to Pro content, whenever it is that I get around to write it)
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 10:14
|
|
|
Looking forward to another good year. Toronto realized the key to selling tickets is to sign Canadians and they fuckin did it.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 10:58
|
|
|
Hot take: goats was glorious and people who didn't like it are lame. Edit: be ready for 3 months of brawl nerds
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 11:25
|
|
|
Nice OP. Also glad I didn't just splurge on skins at the end of last season. I've got like a thousand saved up and I'm gonna hoard them for event skins so I don't have to buy any tokens 
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 11:54
|
|
|
I don't understand why there is never a focus on "fixing" the 5-6 heroes that never get used in professional play. Both of the previous seasons have been plagued by a stale meta, and i'm not sure that the hero pool is enough to fix it.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 12:14
|
|
|
One positive aspect of goats was that seeing the same 6 heroes all the time allowed the overwhelmingly newbie audience get used to the idea of how the positions on a team worked. When OWL started getting shown at every bar in town I would've had a lot more difficulty explaining the difference between main support and flex support if the hero picks were more varied. Also goats being as dominant as it was for as long as it was made it real fuckin incredibly sweet when Shanghai used triple dps to beat three of the best teams in overwatch history one by one by one to take stage 3.  Also some of the late games in stage 3 when goats was on the way out were hilarious. Post-game interview after Boston gets smashed 4-0, "We knew Boston would play goats so we practiced dps" I bought some t-shirts in season 1 when they were 75% off and people now unironically recognize them when I'm going about my day, Overwatch owns, I love the future
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 12:26
|
|
|
Oasx posted:I don't understand why there is never a focus on "fixing" the 5-6 heroes that never get used in professional play. Both of the previous seasons have been plagued by a stale meta, and i'm not sure that the hero pool is enough to fix it. Just because a hero doesn't see use in pro play doesn't mean those heroes aren't used extensively by the community in lower ranks. How do you fix Torbjorn or Symmetra or Bastion to be useful enough for T500 and OWL players without making them oppressive in Silver or Gold? This happened with Reaper when he got buffed enough to see OWL play - Reaper was already a terror of the lower ranks and suddenly he was even worse. Since Blizzard doesn't want to make the game work very differently in OWL than it does for players, this puts them in an awkward position of having to balance heroes for both good players and bad ones. And there's more bad players than good ones.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 13:17
|
|
|
Ad by Khad posted:One positive aspect of goats was that seeing the same 6 heroes all the time allowed the overwhelmingly newbie audience get used to the idea of how the positions on a team worked. When OWL started getting shown at every bar in town I would've had a lot more difficulty explaining the difference between main support and flex support if the hero picks were more varied. Yeah this was a big thing for me getting my girlfriend, family, etc into watching OWL with me. Was a very good starting point. Also whenever anyone talks about GOATS being bad they always point at the bottom of the barrel teams playing it (justice lul) and not the hype matches (shock, titans).
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 13:33
|
|
|
Extremely hype for OWL to start this weekend. My friends and I have been watching T3 games in the off-season, like Breakable Barriers and a few of the off-off brand local tournaments. Super fun to watch. Now OWL is back! Heading to NYC this weekend for the NYXL homestand. Later this month we’re gonna do the DC homestand!
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 13:37
|
|
|
No Mica Burton makes me very very sad. Anyone know what she's going to be up to instead?
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 13:45
|
|
|
Tommu posted:Hot take: goats was glorious and people who didn't like it are lame. GOATS was loving excellent at the top level but watching the bottom half of the roster play it was literally painful
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 14:57
|
|
|
ground floor, woo! I stopped playing overwatch in late 2019 but I gotta cheer for the hunters and the dragons
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 17:13
|
|
|
Very excited for another year of the NYXL breaking my heart.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 17:22
|
|
|
I'll agree that watching the teams bad at goats play goats was rough. There was one match in particular - Paris Justice - that was so bad I went on twitter and just started ripping on both teams for putting on such a lovely match. Benbest and Janus were making lots of garbage Rein plays that even I wouldn't make, and my SR is 700 At one point I started counting the panic earthshatters when they were the only ones left alive. On Kings Row alone, that number reached 5. And in any case, there's a lot of good matches too.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 18:00
|
|
|
deadwing posted:GOATS was loving excellent at the top level but watching the bottom half of the roster play it was literally painful This happens in every sport, does it now? I've watched some loving ABYSMAL hockey
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 18:25
|
|
|
What are the week 1 bans (if any)?
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 19:10
|
|
|
Bottom Liner posted:What are the week 1 bans (if any)?
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 19:13
|
|
|
Bottom Liner posted:What are the week 1 bans (if any)? None because hero bans start in March e: actual news stuff https://twitter.com/Viol2t_OW/status/1225735815197863936 https://twitter.com/hastr0/status/1225838876419403787 
Ignis fucked around with this message at 20:59 on Feb 7, 2020 |
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 19:24
|
|
|
deadwing posted:GOATS was loving excellent at the top level but watching the bottom half of the roster play it was literally painful That's literally the same for any meta tho
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 20:45
|
|
|
Great job on the op ignis. I always knew you could do it 
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 20:54
|
|
|
Also I hope all of you are serious about goats being good and aren't just memeing me here. It got old eventually of course but it was a real wonder watching near perfect execution of practiced teamplay.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 21:02
|
|
|
Tommu posted:That's literally the same for any meta tho I dunno I watched every single season one game and none of them were anywhere near as painful as last seasons stage 1 Justice v Spitfire, Outlaws v Valiant or Justice v Mayhem games. I think it comes down to the high level of team coordination that GOATS required. Bad games in other metas at least had pop off moments. Bad GOATS is just two teams in a battle of who can throw harder.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 21:04
|
|
|
I didn't mind goats for the record, in fact I kinda miss Stage 3 because of all the chaos from all teams knowing role q was coming and throwing caution to the wind 
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 21:06
|
|
|
deadwing posted:I dunno I watched every single season one game and none of them were anywhere near as painful as last seasons stage 1 Justice v Spitfire, Outlaws v Valiant or Justice v Mayhem games. I think it comes down to the high level of team coordination that GOATS required. Bad games in other metas at least had pop off moments. Bad GOATS is just two teams in a battle of who can throw harder. I think you’re forgetting just how bad season one Dragons were. Pretty much unwatchable if they weren’t playing a top team, and then it was watching a Harlem Globetrotters match.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 22:08
|
|
|
I don't think I'd necessarily call goats good but it did have some positives. When Jeff announced 222 instead I was happy to hear it, and I think damage heroes really create those highlight-reel moments much better than others. Goats had some highlight-reel moments too, like Bumper killing everyone or Dafran's Zarya play on Hollywood being shown on Sportscenter, but they were rarer. Damage heroes are better at swinging a match by popping off at literally any moment when things go right. About a month ago I remember seeing something about an overwatch group starting up where the only heroes allowed were from various goats variants, but variants like Winstrike who used Mei instead of Dva in Contenders EU were not allowed. 4 tanks and 4 supports available, choose 3 each.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 22:39
|
|
|
https://twitter.com/overwatchleague/status/1225890728410259462?s=21 https://twitter.com/overwatchleague/status/1225898821479067648?s=21 https://twitter.com/overwatchleague/status/1225883527914196992?s=21
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 23:02
|
|
|
Some gentle reminders for season 3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PI9eWetXaAk https://twitter.com/MonteCristo/status/1173294805226532864
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 23:44
|
|
|
What time are the matches scheduled for the weekends?
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 23:46
|
|
|
GodFish posted:What time are the matches scheduled for the weekends? https://overwatchleague.com/en-us/schedule 1/3/5/7PM EST
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2020 00:13
|
|
|
GodFish posted:What time are the matches scheduled for the weekends? the link will always show them in your local times which is going to be very handy in s3.
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2020 01:37
|
|
|
Ad by Khad posted:Some gentle reminders for season 3 Gentle reminder that Monte is a shithead who should gently caress off forever
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2020 02:23
|
|
|
dogstile posted:Gentle reminder that Monte is a shithead who should gently caress off forever Yeah thats an appropriate response for someone you probably dont know. Care to elaborate?
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2020 02:36
|
|
|
Fauxtool posted:Yeah thats an appropriate response for someone you probably dont know. Care to elaborate? Lmao what are you talking about? We all spent 2 years minimum watching Monte be a deliberate villain. We may not know him personally but we know him professionally - he's an rear end in a top hat and since he flounced out of OWL, it'd be nice if he just disappeared from our line of sight.
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2020 03:17
|
|
|
monte's best friend is thorin and if that doesnt tell you enough you havent been paying attention. he's a loving massive chud and they should both gently caress off. j
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2020 05:24
|
|
|
Hype to watch OWL in europe for once later this year
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2020 05:32
|
|
|
drat if these are the usual times I'm only ever going to be able to see the sunday games this year. Bring back the weekend games!
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2020 07:53
|
|
|
every game is a weekend game this season
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2020 08:05
|
|
|
Fauxtool posted:Yeah thats an appropriate response for someone you probably dont know. Care to elaborate? He spent two years being a fuckwit, every time he was wrong he weaseled out of accepting that he was and now that he's left OWL he has even less reason to be a part of this thread, as he's irrelevant and trash
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2020 15:18
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 21:49 |
|
|
NYXL Homestand looking dope https://twitter.com/espn_esports/status/1226169721042751489?s=21 https://twitter.com/willproduces/status/1226169732199600129?s=21 e: 90 minutes until games https://youtube.com/overwatchleague If for whatever reason you miss the Twitch experience try https://gigabra.in/ (includes the companion streams, and the traditional twitch chat) e2: smexy is out for this weekend. Who's gonna offtank for Paris now? 
Ignis fucked around with this message at 17:53 on Feb 8, 2020 |
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2020 16:51
|
|