@RNach_
2016-12-09 03:59:12
Overwatch is here to stay.
The good news for western fans is that the viewership on the English stream has been increasing, just as steadily as the presence in the OGN studio over the course of the season. However, as this is a write-up about OGN’s APEX, by "here“ I mean South Korea.
Despite what skeptics were guessing, around the time of release, Overwatch as a game still remains wildly popular in Korean PC bangs. Despite seeing a considerable drop-off of nearly 15% of its player base compared to the previous month, it was played only about 2% less than League of Legends in the online cafes for November. Further evidence of how neck-and-neck the race between them both is the biggest difference between the two for the month - it was just over 3% and that happened during the downtime of Overwatch's competitive season. Blizzard's hit hasn't been a LoL killer, but it is certainly extremely popular game and continues gaining traction as an esport. Additionally OGN themselves have been open about their dedication to the title. They’ve got their premier English duo casting APEX and, unlike with LoL, are running both, the primary and secondary league for the region. Needless to say that points toward Overwatch becoming staple of Korean esports, even if it doesn’t reach king status.
Tournaments need tools, allowing them to set up games on older patch.
This is something that has been talked about previously, but the conversations never got anywhere as there wasn’t any real need for it. However with the patch landing mid-tournament, before the end of the group stage, it would have been the perfect time to use such a feature. A tool like this would have, at the very least, allowed to finish the group stage on the same patch.
As it is not reasonable to expect Blizzard to deploy patches based on the schedules of various third party tournament organizers, the obvious fix seems to be creating a custom game mutator that lets teams play on a previous patch. This will allow both for tournaments to be more independent and immune to last-minute patches, thus making the result have more long-term bearing and teams to practice for upcoming tournament, knowing their practice won’t be all in vain, even if surprising patch hits.
The APEX format still needs work.
It is no secret that tournament organizers have had trouble choosing a format that makes both, them and players happy. Some have been trying out a more "standard“ process, and taking cues from game like CS:GO, by simply having teams ban and pick maps, regardless of type.
Other tournament organizers are going 180 degreess against that; following Blizzard's rules, they're forcing teams to play on specific maps, essentially turning the event into a series of showmatches, rather than competition between top teams. OGN, while taking a direction that has been my favorite, are no exception when it comes to criticism regarding the format of the matches.
Their map veto process is making sure that different types of maps are being played, yet still leaves room for the teams to select what they want to play on. The main criticism I can personally level at OGN regarding the format is having randomized map selection and them being involved in the map pool selection.
The series begins with randomizer selecting the single CP map. The randomness aspect is good for variety, in theory. Not so much in practice though, as the majority of the season was spent on Nepal. The sixteen squads played 36 games on Nepal, 18 on Lijiang Tower and 8 on the temporarily removed from the pool Ilios. In addition to not providing the desired variety for viewers, the randomizer can also unfairly decide on first map, that favors one of the teams in the context of the match-up, thus swinging the whole series in said team’s favor.
A good example for that could have been the final?—?EnVyUS vs Afreeca Freaks Blue. Afreeca were the heavy favorites on the single CP maps, but (as I mentioned in my predictions) Nepal was nV’s best and possibly only chance for a win. Unluckily for the Korean side, that is exactly the map the randomizer selected.
Imagine how poor of a situation it would have been if nV won in seven maps rather than four. The randomizer would have essentially given them decent chance of winning the series, as they would have had much harder time on the two other possible picks. However if Nepal was played after pick&ban process (ex. both teams banning one single CP map), it would be Afreeca’s mistake for letting Taimou and co. have their best chance, rather than luck deciding against them. Fortunately, that didn’t happen, but if we learned something from the previous entry, it is that it’s better to have potential issues resolved, before they crop up.
In similar fashion, I also don’t think the ideal way of determining the map pool for each match, is OGN selecting it it. Teams being able to ban out certain number of maps is an alternative I’d much rather see. Aiming to keep the pools similar to what OGN operated with, the obvious solution would be having a coin toss decide which team bans escort type map and have the other one scratch out double CP representative.
For hybrid, both teams can veto one map each. That would leave them with two maps from each type and allow the rest of the series, after the single CP is played out, to proceed in similar manner?—?the loser of a map determines what is played next. Admittedly this specific way of doing the pick&ban process would only work for Bo5 series, until fifth hybrid map is added by Blizzard.
Individual skill does not make your team win automatically, but it certainly helps.
As the first beta of the game started, so did the discussions about how much impact individual skills can have in a game so heavily focused on teamwork by design. While teamplay, coordination, ultimate management, tactical adaptation and apt strategy are important, nV showed us that assembling all-star roster is also a viable approach for Overwatch GMs. If you haven’t considered them as an all-star roster before, here’s simple breakdown that will likely change your mind:
- from what we’ve seen so far, Mickie is the best D.va player in the world;
- Taimou is one of the best Roadhog players in the world and certainly was the best performing one in APEX. Additionally he brings immense playmaking abilities and variety to the team, as he played 7 heroes, in the knockout stage of the tournament alone;
- Harryhook is one of, if not the best Soldier 76 players in the world and boasts great hitscan aiming prowess;
- Over the last few months, Chipshajen has distinguished himself as one of three best Ana players in the world. Additionally in the opinion of many, myself included, he was MVP of the final.
- cocco & INTERNETHULK have about as much experience as you can ask for, and are quickly becoming some of the top Reinhardt and Lucio players.
Given the circumstances that led to this happening and taking into consideration how patches forcefully alter the meta game, it will be hard for someone to intentionally assemble similar level of players under the same roof. However, after seeing nV lift the APEX cup it is hard to deny that it can work.
Could Afreeca Freecs Blue be underrated, rather than lucky?
Recry and co. made it to the final of the tournament, yet many are lining up to say they weren’t even top 4 team in the tournament. There are those who’d even claim the Freecs in Blue aren’t even among the four best teams in Korea. However if one takes a look at their recent tournament record, a curious pattern can be noticed. Ever since September, even before Recry joined, the squad has only lost to the eventual champions of the event in the events they’ve played in:
- China-Korea Megagame?—?lost in the finals against sister team Afreeca Freecs Red; - Nexus Cup?—?lost in the finals against NGA Club; - APAC Premier?—?Recry joined, but that didn’t seem to change the pattern as they beat same NGA roster twice,to lose against Rogue in the Ro8, the eventual tournament winner; - Nexus Cup?—?Halloween Season, Korean Qualifier?—?this is where it gets spicy; they lost in the Ro8 of the Korean qualifier to Kongdoo Panthera, who won their bracket of the qualifier and went on to sweep the main event, not dropping a single map.
In APEX, the trend continued with loss to nV in the final. It is considerably harder to deny them as top Korean team after seeing these results. Of course, fact of the matter remains that they had the worst support duo in the APEX playoffs and don’t quite pass the eye test to be considered elite level team either. Should the pattern continue repeating itself though, viewers and analysts alike will need to take more careful look at the team to figure if they are missing something about the squad, or if they are indeed the luckiest team out there.
BK’s stars are on the right track.
At the start of the season Bunny and BERNAR were looking like one-trick ponies on a solo-queue heroes type of team, that got lucky to be placed in the weakest group of the tournament. By the end of their tournament run though, they were two promising star players with excellent synergy between themselves. On top of that, they are also two of the world’s best on Tracer and Zarya.
The team’s bread and butter ‘big kombo’ of Graviton Surge + Pulse Bomb is product of the aforementioned synergy and their impeccable sense of timings. The ability to reliably land it against some of the best teams of the world is impressive on its own. What makes the two even more deadly though, is their emergence as two of the best aimers in Korea. The mechanical prowess allows them to deal a lot of damage, as well as quickly build-up the ultimates they are so remarkable at utilizing.
Of course, the fact remains that both of them are limited in terms of hero pools. Neither has shown same level of abilities on any of the other characters they’ve played. That is especially important in the case of Bunny. Other Korean star DPS players have already displayed similar impact on multitude of heroes, while the drop-off for him is considerable. Nonetheless, the progress by BK’s star players has been impressive and by the end of their run both had started diversifying. They need to continue working on the effectiveness with other heroes, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see some of the professional organizations snatch them from the amateur team.
Korea needs to unite its talent.
Speaking of snatching players, that’s what I’m about to recommend to all the top Korean teams. Throughout the tournament it became painfully obvious that South Korea’s top Overwatch talent is spread out between too many teams at the moment.
The easiest way for region as a whole to improve quickly and by a significant margin would be skilled players uniting under one roof. Of course that does not mean the six best players joining a team with next six best joining another, in spite of roles and playing styles. If anything, that could possibly have catastrophic results for the scene and possibly end someone’s career prematurely, due to frustration and/or gaining poor reputation.
What the advice above urges team to do is replace their obvious weak links with players who’ve shown talent and ability to play the role you need them to fill. For example a team like AF Blue, whose supports have consistently shown poor level, could easily take two of BK Stars’s players. The two I recommend would however be Twinkl & Twilight, not the aforementioned star players. BK’s supports might not be on the level of Lunatic-Hai's Tobi & Ryujehong, but they’ve definitely shown themselves to be considerably more capable than Afreeca’s current duo.
Could this be the start of second nV era?
nV’s first era of domination ended with 2–3 loss to Rogue at the Atlantic Showdown. That was followed by another 2–3 loss to Misfits in the Overwatch Open Grand final and the „American“ team dropping out of APAC due to visa issues in favor of Rogue, the eventual champions of the Chinese tournament. However after Mickie replaced Talespin, a 3–2 win over the very same Rogue roster in the APEX Ro8 seemingly kickstarted their run for the cup. Now that they’ve won their first big offline event, one can’t help but wonder if it is going to be the start of another round of dominance for the multinational squad, this time on LAN. It is certainly possible that a year down the line we’ll look at APEX’s first season as a lonely win for nV, earned only due to the perfect storm that was the recent patch and the addition of Mickie. However, after taking a look at the field of opposition at MLG Vegas and consider how much the current patch fits Taimou and co. better than anybody else in the world, it seems likely that they’ll continue winning, at least for the immediate future.
Taimou is the MVP for APEX’s first season.
When nV’s troubles began in the last third of the summer many wondered if nV’s star Finn could display on LAN, the same heights he showcases online. Anti-fans on the other hand were quick to fire even more cheating accusations at the 23 year old. As his team lost in the Overwatch Open Grand Final, despite great individual performance by him, the barrage of cheating accusations had lessened. Now though, some were criticizing him for not enabling his teammates to perform the better, instead of focusing on himself.
In APEX he continued showing great individual performances one after another. Even in the series his team lost to Lunatic-Hai in the Ro16, the Finn was in contention for best player on the server. He was landing hooks and headshots one after another and making little to no mistakes, doing as much as one player can to put his team in the position to win. For the playoffs Taimou went one step further. He let Harryhook take over the main DPS role, yet still continued having great impact on his signature Roadhog and seven other heroes. Given the number of heroes he plays and the quality performances he’s been delivering, the Finn is now making strong claim for the unofficial title of ‘best player in the world’.
The reality is that no matter what he does, he’ll likely still retain a group of haters and anti-fans. Hopefully though, nV winning huge LAN event with him getting, the well deserved, MVP award will finally be enough to shut up those.
Don’t write out Rogue yet.
This would have been interesting section, where I explain why Rogue are still one of the best teams in the world -- and why wouldn’t they be? They won the Atlantic Showdown and more recently APAC Premier. Additionally in their two other recent tournaments they lost only to the eventual champions, both times 2–3. Surely the team just needs more time and they’d adapt to the new patch. Right?! Well that’s what the I thought, but apparently the squad disagreed and the two Swedes have now parted ways with the four Frenchmen. They were replaced by SoOn and the German tank player skipjack.
And while swapping DPS and Tank will always switch-up things, it is even more so the case for Rogue. Both of the players who left were to a huge degree defining of the team’s identity. Reinforce might have not be the best tank player in the world, but his hyper aggressive style was one of the first things you thought about, when someone mentioned Rogue. The other big one of course was TviQ?—? the super-star captain of the squad that plays every DPS hero. Not exactly someone you can easily replace either. While SoOn and skipjack are no slouches themselves, it seems unlikely that they’ll be able to jump in and instantly fill the Swedes’ shoes. Furthermore while the addition of SoOn makes the team 5 parts French. skipjack, however, is German dude who, according to the announcement, will be taking French lessons with the coach to improve his communication with the rest...
About the author: Hello readers! I go by the ID RadoN and probably similarly to many of you, I’ve been playing video games for years. My introduction to esports happened in 2009 and ever since, I’ve been following different titles within the industry. Other games I currently follow are LoL, CS:GO, QL with the occasional SFV, DOTA2, SC2 and HotS. If you wish to provide feedback, support and follow future content, or simply know more about my thoughts on gaming and esports,@RadoNonFire on twitter.
Photo credits: OGN.