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SCHEDULE | WATCH @ YOUTUBE GAMING | OVERWATCH CONTENDERS AND COLLEGIATE If you're looking for the other Overwatch thread for general non-esports fun, go here. Previous OWL thread Hello and welcome to the Overwatch League Season 4 thread, for the multimillion esports league hosted every year by Blizzard Esports. We also talk about Overwatch Contenders, Collegiate initiatives and basically any other minor Overwatch esport tournaments. 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., 20 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. The League kicks off on April 16, with the playoffs and Grand Finals taking place in September. Due to the current pandemic, all matches will be held online remotely, with half of the league playing from USA, and the rest of the teams playing from Europe and Asia. There's no ETA on resuming the homestands format from last season. PREVIOUSLY ON SEASON 3 We got a glimpse of the intended homestand model for a few weeks, until... well, you know. The San Francisco Shock won a lot, again, getting their second championship in a row. We also saw two disastrous team implosions in the form of the old Vancouver Titans, and more recently the Chinese overhaul of the LA Valiant, on Immortal Gaming's continued bid to weasel out of a multimillion contract. PRIZE POOL This season a total of US $4,250,000 is up for grabs, with prizing split between tournaments and the playoffs.  REGULAR SEASON FORMAT Regular-season play will be structured in four tournament cycles: the May Melee, June Joust, Summer Showdown, and Countdown Cup. Teams will play four qualifier matches each cycle to determine seeding for each of the culminating tournaments. Teams will be divided into two groups based on their location this season: East and West. The East (APAC) will consist of 8 teams, with the remaining 12 in the West (NA). Regular-season qualifier matches and tournament qualification will be based on competition within each group. Teams from both regions will compete in the four tournaments. In the West, the top six qualifying teams will first play a round of knockout matches, with two teams advancing to tournament weekend. In the East, the top four qualifiers will play down to two teams. The top two teams from the East and West will then play in a double-elimination bracket to determine a tournament champion. West Teams             East Teams         LEAGUE POINTS? For this season, the league is implementing a new scoring method called League Points. Qualification for in-season tournaments and for the 2021 playoffs will be based on each team’s total League Points. There are two ways teams can earn League Points: winning qualifier matches and placing well in tournaments. Teams get 1 League Point for each match win during regular-season qualification matches. During tournaments, there’s additional points at stake: 1st place = 3 points 2nd place = 2 points 3rd place = 1 point Regular season match wins—not including tournament wins—is the top tiebreaker to determine ordering among teams with the same amount of League Points, with additional tiebreakers to be added to the ruleset. HERO POOLS The controversial Hero Pools system makes a return for this season, a rotation of playable heroes intended to showcase more hero diversity and strategy in matches. Hero Pools will be used for two of the four tournament cycles: the June Joust and the Countdown Cup. That includes all of the qualifier and tournament matches for each of those cycles. There will be no Hero Pool for the May Melee, Summer Showdown, or in the playoffs. For the two cycles where Hero Pools are used, four heroes will be removed from play: two damage, one tank, and one support. Heroes are randomly selected from a group of eligible heroes based on play-rate data from the previous tournament cycle of Overwatch League matches. Only heroes that are being played regularly—10% or more—can be pulled out of Hero Pool rotation. No hero can be removed more than once during the season. Each map pool will be played with 14 maps and the same four game modes (control, hybrid, escort, and assault) in each tournament cycle: 5 control (all of them), 3 hybrid, 3 escort, and 3 assault. The game mode order will change for each tournament cycle and for the playoffs. The May Melee tournament cycle map pool includes:
The pools for the other tournaments will be announced at a later date. PLAYOFFS The League Points will determine the seeding across both regions. At the end of the regular season, the top three teams from the West region and top two teams from the East region will directly qualify into the playoffs. There's tentative plans of having the top teams from the West region fly out to Hawaii, in order to compete against the East teams remotely with a fairer ping - with a fallback plan of having an online tournament with separate champions. WHAT GAME PATCH IS THE LEAGUE RUNNING ON? Patches will be deployed to Overwatch League between tournament cycles during bye weeks. This is likely gonna be different for Contenders, which traditionally runs on the last patch before live. WHERE TO WATCH
Once again we're on YouTube Gaming, but this time we actually get drops! These drops earn you OWL Tokens, which you can use on your Blizzard account to purchase Overwatch League skins. They can be earned by watching through YouTube, the Overwatch League website or the Overwatch League mobile app. You need to link your battle.net account to your Youtube account if you're watching through Youtube, which you can do from here. Some people have reported this might not work if you still got an old YouTube account, from before the Google times, requiring a Brand Account (ie an account with a proper name). The league has also improved the video quality this time around. This season we're getting 4K broadcasts as well as clipping, two often requested features that people missed from the Twitch times. Also just like the last season, there's no TV or cable broadcast this year. Matches will be rerun later in the morning for the North American teams that are physically located in Asia (NYXL, Fusion, Valiant), these are called Encore matches and unlike vods, they're eligible for drops too. All Encore broadcasts will begin at 9:30 a.m. PT and lead into Watchpoint (the Overwatch League preshow) for that day’s West region schedule. For the full match schedule, check the Overwatch League website. LINKS & RESOURCES
Ignis fucked around with this message at 20:27 on Apr 10, 2021 |
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Apr 10, 2021 20:13
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| # ? May 3, 2024 10:36 |
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Reserving for Contenders and other minors and stuff. I'll remember this time I swear  Collegiate is on btw! https://youtube.com/overwatchcontenders/live
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Apr 10, 2021 20:16
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CowMan711 from Northwood University tried to lob a grav over the left hand side on village... and completely whiffed. pretty funny
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Apr 10, 2021 20:19
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dallas gonna choke, houston still bad
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Apr 10, 2021 20:20
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For anyone who might've missed the Xbox Rein skin last month, you've got this weekend up to Contenders KR to log those hours. Also I think they may have shortened the hours for Xbox Echo and Brig? I've already got them but I don't remember watching that many hours yet, but ymmv https://twitter.com/owpathtopro/status/1380959745155076096
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Apr 10, 2021 20:26
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Good OP. This season seems a lot more competitive than last season. A good amount of the poo poo tier teams picked up some actual talent. Looking forward to it.
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Apr 10, 2021 20:44
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I know hero pools apparently suck poo poo from a player/coaching/management perspective but I actually kind of like it as a spectator. Its unfortunate its probably a major source of burnout and stress for them and I'm surprised that isn't more of a consideration given how held together by tape the whole organization feels right now. Still, looking foward to the season.
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Apr 10, 2021 22:29
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apparently the teams voted for how hero pools worked last year, which is really weird to me considering how dumb the system they ended up with was. this year's is much better
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Apr 10, 2021 23:17
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Very excited to cheer for my favorite teams right up until someone on the team turns out to be a huge piece of poo poo.
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Apr 11, 2021 01:11
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CuwiKhons posted:Very excited to cheer for my favorite teams right up until someone on the team turns out to be a huge piece of poo poo. They didnt get good at video games by learning acceptable social behavior. The "good" ones are the exception. The rest were raised on a steady stream of calling each other the nword online.
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Apr 11, 2021 01:14
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CuwiKhons posted:Very excited to cheer for my favorite teams right up until someone on the team turns out to be a huge piece of poo poo. The new team this year is the Alabama Slurs.
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Apr 11, 2021 01:23
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i dont know how it hasnt gotten out yet but the korean teams are a hotbed of racism and slurs that just happen to be said in korean. There is a lot of in game comms out there in english and poor english but there is a shockingly low amount of korean OWL comms to listen to.
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Apr 11, 2021 01:31
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new justice merch dropped https://washingtonjustice.whatsneu.gg/collections/cherry-blossom I just need spark to release those mikasa shirts and keycaps to the US market. Fauxtool fucked around with this message at 03:17 on Apr 11, 2021 |
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Apr 11, 2021 03:12
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CuwiKhons posted:Very excited to cheer for my favorite teams right up until someone on the team turns out to be a huge piece of poo poo. You can always just hope they go to valorant first!
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Apr 11, 2021 03:46
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Fauxtool posted:i dont know how it hasnt gotten out yet but the korean teams are a hotbed of racism and slurs that just happen to be said in korean. There is a lot of in game comms out there in english and poor english but there is a shockingly low amount of korean OWL comms to listen to. it has come up before that some korean players used to be active posters on far-right message board ilbe, and there's been stuff like rjh's drunken misogynist meltdown etc.
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Apr 11, 2021 04:27
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Fauxtool posted:i dont know how it hasnt gotten out yet but the korean teams are a hotbed of racism and slurs that just happen to be said in korean. There is a lot of in game comms out there in english and poor english but there is a shockingly low amount of korean OWL comms to listen to. I'm aware of that but I don't speak Korean so it's not like I'm watching any of them stream anyway. It's really more the sex pest allegations that keep cropping up.
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Apr 11, 2021 04:29
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yo when are they making a chicago team
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Apr 11, 2021 06:22
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The collegiate grand final match is about to kick off, if anyone's following that. Hopefully will be a closer game than the 2-0 and 3-0 stomps we've been seeing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8cgfHPi_k0
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Apr 11, 2021 23:03
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Fauxtool posted:i dont know how it hasnt gotten out yet but the korean teams are a hotbed of racism and slurs that just happen to be said in korean. There is a lot of in game comms out there in english and poor english but there is a shockingly low amount of korean OWL comms to listen to. I think it's more likely that the editor of Comms Check doesn't speak any korean, because when they do feature korean players it's usually broken english or someone yelling MOTH NERVOUS over and over. They must've hired a translator to do the playoffs Comm Checks, but considering they also asked every team last season to have their own translators for interviews instead of hiring a korean/chinese translator, I don't think Blizz wants to spare the cash on having a translator comb through comms for a silly weekly segment. e: also a lot of the APAC teams post their own self-edited Comm Checks on their english SNS e2: for example here's the comms of Yaki's Echo shatters https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NIZnwC-uqY Ignis fucked around with this message at 06:52 on Apr 12, 2021 |
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Apr 12, 2021 06:46
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The collegiate tournament was an equal mix of really good games and complete stomps.
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Apr 12, 2021 14:24
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Production seems vastly improved for Tier 2 and up so it'll be really exciting to see how OWL games go this year. It really sucks that homestands aren't coming back since they were super fun last year, but that's just something we have to deal with. Friday can't come soon enough.
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Apr 13, 2021 00:24
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Time Crisis Actor posted:Production seems vastly improved for Tier 2 and up so it'll be really exciting to see how OWL games go this year. It really sucks that homestands aren't coming back since they were super fun last year, but that's just something we have to deal with. Friday can't come soon enough. I went to NYXLs two home stand days and it was loving fantastic. Really sad they’re not coming back for now.
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Apr 13, 2021 00:28
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One of the new additions this year is community sprays, which you can earn alongside tokens by watching matches. The first collectible we're getting is a tracer spray drawn by Soe https://twitter.com/overwatchleague/status/1381714239191015424?s=21 Also there's pickems on the official website, with prizes for the people who guess the matches correctly. New Mitchell & Ness Overwatch League line. They've previously done exclusive merch for events and homestands. https://www.mitchellandness.com/collections/overwatch-league I just love this shirt (from a previous apparel line) 
Ignis fucked around with this message at 02:15 on Apr 13, 2021 |
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Apr 13, 2021 01:01
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I have a Mitchell and ness zip up hoodie from the NYXL home stand. That thing is loving incredibly well made. It was like $125 and worth every penny.
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Apr 13, 2021 02:47
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https://twitter.com/DallasFuel/status/1381999958774050816 https://twitter.com/xzi_ow/status/1382008308148563970 https://twitter.com/haloofthoughts/status/1382012915692228611?s=19
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Apr 13, 2021 18:31
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drat. One of the standout players of last season too. Bummer.
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Apr 13, 2021 18:44
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Some people are pointing out Fielder has been playing cree on ranked lately, so that's where they might be heading OWL has announced a partnership with IBM to create AI devised power rankings https://twitter.com/IBMSports/status/1382032144885776390?s=19
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Apr 13, 2021 20:23
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I apologize in advance to denizens of this thread for my inevitable and pathetic meltdowns over the Hangzhou Spark this season. edit: lol that IBM's power rankings are even worse than Jaws' surf rock fucked around with this message at 22:38 on Apr 13, 2021 |
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Apr 13, 2021 21:20
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I wouldnt think IBM wants their branding on an AI that thinks boston is last and valiant in middle of the pack
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Apr 13, 2021 23:06
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drat, really liked Xzi. Nenne still available
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Apr 13, 2021 23:09
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that's sad to hear about xzi, hope he can make a return after recoveringFauxtool posted:I wouldnt think IBM wants their branding on an AI that thinks boston is last and valiant in middle of the pack presumably it's based off stats that currently exist for teams and that means it thinks boston sucks and valiant is pretty good
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Apr 13, 2021 23:13
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I think it's unlikely xzi comes back this season, apparently he's been struggling with the pain since Element Mystic times (e: summary of his stream)Strong Sauce posted:drat, really liked Xzi. https://twitter.com/Ghostless/status/1382007960730271747?s=19 Ignis fucked around with this message at 01:32 on Apr 14, 2021 |
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Apr 14, 2021 01:22
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Finally, Diya's time to shine
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Apr 14, 2021 06:47
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Aww no nenne?  also: https://twitter.com/overwatchleague/status/1382183078622232578
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Apr 14, 2021 06:58
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https://twitter.com/SoOn99/status/1382305144893767681?s=19 really too bad, I was looking forward to seeing him again this season
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Apr 14, 2021 14:11
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https://twitter.com/eyleahcbye/status/1382343886471794694
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Apr 14, 2021 15:49
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https://twitter.com/LAGladiators/status/1382390836458004481?s=19  I hope he really is there with them and not playing on ping again
Ignis fucked around with this message at 22:31 on Apr 14, 2021 |
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Apr 14, 2021 19:53
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man the glads are gonna be so good
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Apr 14, 2021 20:13
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i looked around for what he said. apparently he was streaming on twitch instead of douyu (chinese streaming site) and he said something along the lines of, "In China you can't say Taiwan is Taiwan/Hong Kong is Hong Kong, the team told me if you want to make Chinese money you have to be a dog to the Chinese. Now I am a good bitch of China by learning Chinese"
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Apr 14, 2021 21:05
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| # ? May 3, 2024 10:36 |
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https://www.ggrecon.com/articles/sources-explain-soon-s-departure-from-the-boston-uprising Slight clarification about Soon: the Kraft Group has regulations that prevent Boston from hiring people without an american visa, which has limited them in the past when scouting for new players. The League doesn't have any specific rules that forbid a player from playing remotely while their team is located in the US. Interesting that this Kraft Group rule didn't quite extend to Uprising Academy, but I guess that's like small peanuts in comparison.
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Apr 14, 2021 22:31
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