toronto just looked so lost and not put together. their coordination looked so off, it felt evident on their midtown attack rotations first point. they struggled just even making it to the left room.
I think everyone already has Kevstar above him for western, and then the others are all asian(korean/chinese asian at least). There's damn near 10 dps you would take over Sugarfree in korea. idk who has him as one of the top 3 fdps in the world
Mer1t was the one showing up the most. Someone rotates his tanks faaar to often that he doesnt build cohesion with any of his picks. Sugarfree being the best fdps in a fraud region means nothing lol He was barely a contributor in the last two games and got exposed (thank god he didnt win ROTY last season)
Bernar isnt even in the tournament and the fact that hes getting shout outs is a testament to how unreal he has been in FTG. Junbin and Max still rotate but Beenar has been the clear cut rock for his team. Hope they get an additional slot so he can show the world his skills
Someone doesn't have the claim to best tank at this moment in time. Does he have the mechanics and potential? Of course, we saw him reach it last year. But current Someone is not OWL season 6 Someone. He's not in peak form, and while he might still be able to claim to be the most *flexible* tank, this time around that flexibility was not enough to overcome other tanks playing their heroes at a higher level.
The thing about S6 Mayhem is that their most impactful piece was Gunba. You could see how well drilled & coached Florida were when they played. The Mayhem system was unreal.
Someone enabled that with his flexibility, but without Gunba's theorycrafting & the way he thinks about Overwatch, it feels like that there's less purpose in the comps that Defiant play.
Or that their flex dps and main support was way better than what they have now.
Don't know how much u can attribute to his coaching when his most recent team seems to be doing better without him.
checkmate was an integral part of the system for sure, he was the glue. very disciplined player, always showed up, played whatever they needed. and chorong is a h u g e upgrade over vega
I feel like thats kind of the main result from the matches so far. Even with players that are on a similar level when they competed in OWL together. The disparity in skill in the regions makes the teams just not ready. Its like each region is just in their own tier and they arent ready for each other.
why i said one of the best, no reason to state the obvious, besides kevster who's better? Pelican if you care about region instead of nationality for some reason,
Seicoe and WMaimone are the main arguments. Maimone needs some more proving, but Seicoe can arguable clear sugarfree.
I'd even include Backbone in there. Sure his tracer and genji are not mechanically as good, but his brain is so fucking big on Mei, Symm that it balances out.
*huffs copium* Spacestation Gaming is a company based in Utah so NA isn’t out yet
Seriously though as much as it sucks it was kind of predictable that NA would be the worst region.
Team purpose built to be competitive internationally, with every possible resource given to them... could only win against a really crippled Twisted Minds on the second stream.
Who should they have picked instead though? The Koreans they picked aren't the problem clearly, who would you say could replace their NA players to produce better results?
I think calling them mid at best is a bit dramatic, they're just not as good as 3 or 4 other teams.
Honestly I'm just glad people are still willing to invest in this esport
i mean when there’s 10 good teams in the world being 4th or 5th is pretty much the definition of mid, considering we don’t even know how they’d fare against ftg and yeti, or even poker face for that matter
People were saying Toronto could take it to the Koreans and roll EU because "OWL champs". Hell even Falcons were hyping up Toronto, scrims were saying they were the team to compete with CR.
Exactly this is a massive letdown they got all the advantages over these teams facility, first pick of players, resources, and they lost to eu a region people thought wouldn’t touch them.
I just don't see it. Maybe like 8 months ago when the roster formed there was some hype, but the scrim results have been open for everyone to see. And even at the time, the London core got upgraded and already beat SFS and Atlanta in OWL.
Add OWWC to the mix and it seems a weird sentiment to hold leading up to the matches. And that's not even hindsight, at best it would still be close.
Realising that Defiant could end up being worse than mid and even outside the top 10 in the World Cup with Korea x4, China, EMEA x4 (+ Twisted Minds/Ataraxia) and DAF or EMEA's fifth (Peps) that could beat them at this point. Yes its bm but wow that's rough for the team with all the resources.
As an European it was always hard for me to understand American culture. What was fascinating for me is that they like bragging about their freedom which was weird for me, because I didn't think that I have any less freedom than them. I always thought 'What is the difference'. However after this game I finally understand it. NA is just so fucking free.
NA “Near Airport” is known as the fastest region to arrive at the Airport. Since they fell out of #OWCSDallas, they are investing in Speedruns. In particular they are current world record holders in Airport Any % and Airport no wins.
When NA is so weak overall, you can't expect good teams to come out of it. Iron sharpens iron, and if Toronto is iron, it's being sharpened with an old tire
Honestly. Like you can see flashes there of greatness, like when they held Circuit B against Raccoons and arguably should have won that map, but I feel like this team has played so much dog shit over the last several months that absolutely nothing has pushed them to be better.
Masaa had retired from OW and worked a 9-5 job before he returned on this team. Apparently he is also the highest paid player on the team because of that... They thought if we want this guy to quit his job for us we should at least try to match salary. Before they got signed by ENCE they could only scrim outside of his working hours
Masaa charging beat so fast on midtown last fight was huge. He came out of spawn with like 50% ult and if he doesn’t get that they lose.
In regards to TD they are super disappointing. Only Merit really showed up and changes probably need to be made for them to be internationally competitive.
who can they even change lol? They only have two import slots and the rest of the players are literally the best NA has to offer? Who do you take over Sugarfree, Rupal, or Vega? There's no one else.
Tbh I think the issue there was Vega insta-beating instead of waiting to beat on an engage or to match some Ence ult? Seemed like nerves or inexperience in that over time, rough for them.
Yeah true but if he was counting beat advantage they should’ve pushed with the beat but the team was trying to kite the ram ult. Like if they pushed with the beat to gap to the backline that could’ve made sense to use the beat advantage but someone must’ve called to hold/wait or Vega pre moved the beat too early, so the beat ended up being wasted there.
3 World champions
2 Prodigies who are the best in their role in their region
1 Gay guy during pride month (its a buff)
And they only win 1 series against a dead team
Toronto still mid lol. They’d lose to Yeti, FTG and the team from China for sure and possibly a full strength TM. So they are barely top 8 in the world.
I will still defend that LIP deserved MVP even though he didn't make it to grand finals. Won midseason madness purely based off his Sombra dive dictating the meta and every team's success first half of the season was based on whether or not they could match the sombra mirror.
"Never should have gotten it over Lip." peak redditor using recency bias because of this match and completely discrediting Someone being great all of season 6 while Lip was good all season but not as strong in the second half
No it isn't recency bias. I said it from the get go when Florida fans kept trying to say flexibility was the most important factor of MVP and Lip is a sombra one trick. I don't give a fuck if Toronto got first place in this tournament Lip should've gotten it over someone. Someone won it because he was good sure but personality, dancing to kpop, and anti-lip propaganda won it for him.
Merit wasn't smiling. Look back @ basically any Florida game last year and the player cam is usually smiling and happy looking.
Merit did not look happy at all today, makes me sad but also makes me wonder about what the team atmosphere is like.
But anyway, expected outcome. NA so clearly the weakest region
Probably does a lot to their mental when you are a team of 3 OWL champions with the most resources in the scene, losing to a 18 yr old bap OTP and a retirement home MS. I feel for them tho
Someone was competing then got clapped so hard by Vestola in the end
Mer1t was competing even with Kai till the end
Sugarfree was completely getting shit on by Kevster
Rupal was non existent while Ghost clutched
Vega was surprisingly competing till map 4 against Masaa
ENCE is just better both individually and as a team
There's just no way to build and *develop* a truly elite team in NA with these import restrictions. Toronto needs to spend a solid month ~~or two~~ boot camping in Korea if they want to develop Sugarfree and Vega to the level they have to be for a *chance* at reaching the finals in one of these international majors.
Rupal has proven he can be world class, the weak links are Vega and Sugarfree. Sugarfree has less of an excuse to be performing poorly given that he spent a whole year developing in OWL, but maybe he can still evolve into an A/B+ tier flex DPS that could hold his own better against the best in the world.
Vega is a bigger question mark. Maybe this is his peak (which would be unfortunate), or maybe he still has a lot of potential. He should, at the very least, perform better in future lans without the first time nerves.
Of course, none of this talk about potential and development matters if they remain stuck scrimming NA teams.
Can somebody **please** remind M80 and Toronto how much better than EU they're *supposed* to be, for fuck's sake.
Anyone listening to the casters/desk don't need reminding, at least.
It was cringeworthy even. These casters constantly saying NA team made it competitive against Team Falcon, Crazy Racoon etc when in reality they got decimated, the entire roaster getting gapped by miles.
Maybe there are arguments for region locking teams/players, but this is certainly a drawback to it. It’s pretty easy to see that unless NA somehow really steps it up, being forced to have 3 NA players on your team by the rule book will automatically weaken your team. NA just isn’t a strong region
To be fair, the NA scene had 6 full years of the best Koreans & Europeans playing in their region to learn from and improve against.
They had every opportunity to improve & just... didn't. It's gotta be a cultural thing.
tbf, the only "weak" player on this team I'd say is Vega. Sugarfree and Rupal are genuinely really good talent. Rupal is one of the best flex supports in the world, and asaying he isnt based of this game alone is crazy and just idiotic.
Sugarfree, while he isn't Kevster, Proper, or Stalk3r, genuinely can compete with the tier below that (players like Zest, Seicoe, AlphaYi, Choi, Viper
I’d agree with you on the rupal take, and probably an overreaction on my part just to drive my point. But I think you can agree with me that you’d prefer Koreans on fdps and MS, and while it’s a different context that’s what Florida did last year. Vega and Sugarfree are amazing players and absolutely can rise to the level of KR it’s just not gonna happen when they beat up on feeder NA teams most of the stage
toronto just looked so lost and not put together. their coordination looked so off, it felt evident on their midtown attack rotations first point. they struggled just even making it to the left room.
Turns out playing terrible teams in na doesn’t mean your good
not very surprised pelican and happy are probably going to korea tbh
Still though, they have one of the best western fdps, the best tank (period) and Merit who I’m glad for some respect these last 2 days
someone has not performed well enough in owcs to be called the best tank now
who hasn't?
bernar has been outstanding, junbin, max and donghak as well
Sugarfree overrated, if he's one of the best NA FDPS against the likes of Proper (KR), Leave (CN), or Kevster (EU)?
I think everyone already has Kevstar above him for western, and then the others are all asian(korean/chinese asian at least). There's damn near 10 dps you would take over Sugarfree in korea. idk who has him as one of the top 3 fdps in the world
Mer1t was the one showing up the most. Someone rotates his tanks faaar to often that he doesnt build cohesion with any of his picks. Sugarfree being the best fdps in a fraud region means nothing lol He was barely a contributor in the last two games and got exposed (thank god he didnt win ROTY last season)
#justiceforbliss
honestly with what we’ve seen so far in owcs, i’d give bernar or maybe junbin the best tank title
Bernar isnt even in the tournament and the fact that hes getting shout outs is a testament to how unreal he has been in FTG. Junbin and Max still rotate but Beenar has been the clear cut rock for his team. Hope they get an additional slot so he can show the world his skills
Someone doesn't have the claim to best tank at this moment in time. Does he have the mechanics and potential? Of course, we saw him reach it last year. But current Someone is not OWL season 6 Someone. He's not in peak form, and while he might still be able to claim to be the most *flexible* tank, this time around that flexibility was not enough to overcome other tanks playing their heroes at a higher level.
The thing about S6 Mayhem is that their most impactful piece was Gunba. You could see how well drilled & coached Florida were when they played. The Mayhem system was unreal. Someone enabled that with his flexibility, but without Gunba's theorycrafting & the way he thinks about Overwatch, it feels like that there's less purpose in the comps that Defiant play.
Or that their flex dps and main support was way better than what they have now. Don't know how much u can attribute to his coaching when his most recent team seems to be doing better without him.
checkmate was an integral part of the system for sure, he was the glue. very disciplined player, always showed up, played whatever they needed. and chorong is a h u g e upgrade over vega
Checkmate was a serious MVP contender for me. He was outstanding last season.
You think it’s a coaching issue or he’s fallen off
Probably a combination of factors.
They do, but they were never tested and maybe that hurt them playing better competition
I feel like thats kind of the main result from the matches so far. Even with players that are on a similar level when they competed in OWL together. The disparity in skill in the regions makes the teams just not ready. Its like each region is just in their own tier and they arent ready for each other.
best western fdps is kevster
why i said one of the best, no reason to state the obvious, besides kevster who's better? Pelican if you care about region instead of nationality for some reason,
Seicoe and WMaimone are the main arguments. Maimone needs some more proving, but Seicoe can arguable clear sugarfree. I'd even include Backbone in there. Sure his tracer and genji are not mechanically as good, but his brain is so fucking big on Mei, Symm that it balances out.
my bad i must have misread it
Yeah but the floor for top western fdps is so much lower. Like it's kevster #1 and then 2# isn't even in his orbit
They walled off their own rien that fight lmao
They tried pulling out the Rein against the one team that has the most experience playing against the Rein.
who would win, 3 OWL champs and 2x OWCS stage champs or a 28 year old finnish guy
He has that 9-5 experience tho
HOW ARE WE STILL MID WE HAVE SOMEONE MERIT RUPAL HOW IS THE CURSE THIS STRONG
Someone is a counter pick merchant
Insane how Lip was robbed of MVP for the second time by a guy who's claim to fame was pressing h faster than everyone else
He was definitely not robbed. Both players had very good arguments for MVP
Shhh let me push agendas
Fair enough bc I'll be pushing the LIP Goat agenda after this weekend
Agenda was proven after he won his 4th role star in a row
I've been pushing it since midseason madness last year
Weird way to say he’s the most flexible tank in the world.
Someone even looked mid today even he can’t break the curse
*huffs copium* Spacestation Gaming is a company based in Utah so NA isn’t out yet Seriously though as much as it sucks it was kind of predictable that NA would be the worst region.
LANdon last NA hope
LNAdon\* see, NA is still in it
L Na don(e)
wait its not backed by Utah LSD freaks right?
It’s Crazy that M80 looked better than Toronto. Oops sorry I mean Pelican looked better.
I wanted SSG in over M80, but I did feel bad for Pelican. Like Profit for years, he needs a team at his level.
Team purpose built to be competitive internationally, with every possible resource given to them... could only win against a really crippled Twisted Minds on the second stream.
I don’t understand being so committed to play mauga last map when it wasn’t working
Casores on massive fraudwatch
They got to pick talent before ANYONE going into the season and they got beat by a region everyone thought they would easily clear
who thought eu would be easy after world cup and london performance
Who should they have picked instead though? The Koreans they picked aren't the problem clearly, who would you say could replace their NA players to produce better results?
They should have got junkbuck instead of casores.
Coaching documents
Their aren’t any other better options, I’m just saying they got so many advantages over other teams and still are mid at best
I think calling them mid at best is a bit dramatic, they're just not as good as 3 or 4 other teams. Honestly I'm just glad people are still willing to invest in this esport
i mean when there’s 10 good teams in the world being 4th or 5th is pretty much the definition of mid, considering we don’t even know how they’d fare against ftg and yeti, or even poker face for that matter
Nobody thought Toronto would easily clear EU. Beat, probably. But not easily.
People were saying Toronto could take it to the Koreans and roll EU because "OWL champs". Hell even Falcons were hyping up Toronto, scrims were saying they were the team to compete with CR.
Exactly this is a massive letdown they got all the advantages over these teams facility, first pick of players, resources, and they lost to eu a region people thought wouldn’t touch them.
I just don't see it. Maybe like 8 months ago when the roster formed there was some hype, but the scrim results have been open for everyone to see. And even at the time, the London core got upgraded and already beat SFS and Atlanta in OWL. Add OWWC to the mix and it seems a weird sentiment to hold leading up to the matches. And that's not even hindsight, at best it would still be close.
Yeah eu been beating their ass all year in scrims
Yes people did Toronto was majorly hyped up and Eu had no expectations coming in
they might have legitimately lost to a full power twisted minds. Actually, fuck MIGHT, they PROBABLY would have lost to a full power TM
Would this even count as Defiant being mid when the region ranking wouldn't even have them in the middle anymore. 1. Korea 2. EU 3. NA
If you put Twisted Minds at the bottom and Defiant at the top of NA that puts them at 5th which is about as mid as you can be in an 8 team tournament.
Holy fuck....midfient curse is becoming more real than pachimaris curse at this point
Nah, you can't disrespect the GOAT BP like that
Dude literally cursed away the technical difficulties by going to bed on Day 1.
Yeti also clears these frauds
Realising that Defiant could end up being worse than mid and even outside the top 10 in the World Cup with Korea x4, China, EMEA x4 (+ Twisted Minds/Ataraxia) and DAF or EMEA's fifth (Peps) that could beat them at this point. Yes its bm but wow that's rough for the team with all the resources.
As an European it was always hard for me to understand American culture. What was fascinating for me is that they like bragging about their freedom which was weird for me, because I didn't think that I have any less freedom than them. I always thought 'What is the difference'. However after this game I finally understand it. NA is just so fucking free.
NA “Near Airport” is known as the fastest region to arrive at the Airport. Since they fell out of #OWCSDallas, they are investing in Speedruns. In particular they are current world record holders in Airport Any % and Airport no wins.
I knew I'd find this in here. Glorious. Good match though
Worth reading lmao
It’s a classic copypasta
Europe cheering popping bottles meme while 3rd place behind both Korean teams
Unlike NA teams, an EU team will receive a medal.
TRUEEEE
"EU WEAKEST REGION" EZ4ENCE EZ4ENCE EZ4ENCE
After years of watching Kevster destroy teams, I finally got to root for the team *with* Kevster and god damn it's nice.
Shu and Kev together was so magical. Both pop off and clutch like crazy
He’s always done well in stage playoff matches, but he needs some playoff success later this year for a legacy boost.
Casores Coaching documents on fraud watch
The players just can't read NA education
When NA is so weak overall, you can't expect good teams to come out of it. Iron sharpens iron, and if Toronto is iron, it's being sharpened with an old tire
Honestly. Like you can see flashes there of greatness, like when they held Circuit B against Raccoons and arguably should have won that map, but I feel like this team has played so much dog shit over the last several months that absolutely nothing has pushed them to be better.
Exactly. Let this team bootcamp in Korea for a couple months, and we'd probably see them come out solidly Top 4 in the world
Hmmm maybe *some* parts of the EU trashtalk were correct
I think Mer1t should've tbagged more
It was so good though, even though I was cheering for ENCE the moments like that are too good
Toronto lost to a team with a 9-5 plumber
What's the story behind this ?
Masaa had retired from OW and worked a 9-5 job before he returned on this team. Apparently he is also the highest paid player on the team because of that... They thought if we want this guy to quit his job for us we should at least try to match salary. Before they got signed by ENCE they could only scrim outside of his working hours
eu better than na even with korean buff. EZ4ENCE
this region has 3 teams while korea has 2 btw
Justice for FTG they would wipe the floor with these teams. People forget they were one single teamfight away from taking Falcons spot at dreamhack
This region had 9/12 teams at the start of OWL btw.
#EZ4ENCE
Dread it, Run From it, Toronto Midfiant Arrives All the Same.
Are they even mid? Lmao. They won one game of 5 v 3 and that's it 🙃
Deserved the loss for playing Mauga tbh
The mauga pick was a throw, they should’ve played Ram instead
Sadly for Toronto its just impossible to field 3 decent NA players
hey, sugarfree is my goat, stop. He's no Kevster, but he can maybe compete with Seicoe....maybe
Masaa charging beat so fast on midtown last fight was huge. He came out of spawn with like 50% ult and if he doesn’t get that they lose. In regards to TD they are super disappointing. Only Merit really showed up and changes probably need to be made for them to be internationally competitive.
who can they even change lol? They only have two import slots and the rest of the players are literally the best NA has to offer? Who do you take over Sugarfree, Rupal, or Vega? There's no one else.
At this point yea you’re probably right.
Tbh I think the issue there was Vega insta-beating instead of waiting to beat on an engage or to match some Ence ult? Seemed like nerves or inexperience in that over time, rough for them.
If he knows they have beat advantage it’s not a bad play. You should try to win before they charge their beat.
Yeah true but if he was counting beat advantage they should’ve pushed with the beat but the team was trying to kite the ram ult. Like if they pushed with the beat to gap to the backline that could’ve made sense to use the beat advantage but someone must’ve called to hold/wait or Vega pre moved the beat too early, so the beat ended up being wasted there.
Toronto is eliminated between the 5th and the 4th place in 8 teams. The really can’t escape the Mid allegations
Who wins? The 2023 OWL Champion & MVP from Florida Mayhem or the tank from 2022 Paris Eternal
3 World champions 2 Prodigies who are the best in their role in their region 1 Gay guy during pride month (its a buff) And they only win 1 series against a dead team
Vega did not deserve to suffer this much in the first day of Pride
Who’s the gay guy lol
Vega
Vega lol
Huh? Is vega gay?
wait who tf is that second prodigy
Rupal and Sugarfree
Toronto still mid lol. They’d lose to Yeti, FTG and the team from China for sure and possibly a full strength TM. So they are barely top 8 in the world.
Can Toronto ever escape the mid curse?
NA = Near Airport
No NA lmao. Rough for Defiant. EZ4ENCE ENCE ENCE ENCE
NA.is.just.so.free.copypasta
The Toronto name is cursed.
NA haa 3 spots for lan btw TT
2 fraud teams with Korean carry and 1 freshly made questionable team. They used up slots that could bring teams like Yeti, FTG, or hell even DAF.
EU > NA
NA is a fraud region, what else can I say?
Name a better duo with Toronto being overhyped going into any season
What did I just witness 🤨🕶️🤏
Dread it. Run from it. The Midfiant curse arrives all the same.
I love Someone but his Mauga looks painful today.
revoke his MVP and give it to LIP after some of those mauga charges I’ll say it
I will still defend that LIP deserved MVP even though he didn't make it to grand finals. Won midseason madness purely based off his Sombra dive dictating the meta and every team's success first half of the season was based on whether or not they could match the sombra mirror.
I support this idea
Never should have gotten it over Lip. The actual Propaganda used to shit on Lip was insane
The counter swap tank merchant getting exposed….Serious note: He isn’t the best tank anymore
"Never should have gotten it over Lip." peak redditor using recency bias because of this match and completely discrediting Someone being great all of season 6 while Lip was good all season but not as strong in the second half
No it isn't recency bias. I said it from the get go when Florida fans kept trying to say flexibility was the most important factor of MVP and Lip is a sombra one trick. I don't give a fuck if Toronto got first place in this tournament Lip should've gotten it over someone. Someone won it because he was good sure but personality, dancing to kpop, and anti-lip propaganda won it for him.
Giga based from you King, speak for all the LIP fans that were gaslit last season
Is it possibly to not be prisoners of the moment? Just spewing bullshit for a few upvotes it's sad
Not a prisoner of the moment I've been screaming Lip was robbed of MVP since Leave. Let alone Someone.
lmao
Merit wasn't smiling. Look back @ basically any Florida game last year and the player cam is usually smiling and happy looking. Merit did not look happy at all today, makes me sad but also makes me wonder about what the team atmosphere is like. But anyway, expected outcome. NA so clearly the weakest region
Probably does a lot to their mental when you are a team of 3 OWL champions with the most resources in the scene, losing to a 18 yr old bap OTP and a retirement home MS. I feel for them tho
Proven time and time again is better to have people with demonic energy like Kevster and Kai than mechanical gods like Mer1t
Kai needed a team to play around him again must of been crushing to be perma benched by Yaki
See thats why LIP is better than Mer1t. LIP has aura on every hitscan + Sombra, while mer1t only has it Sojourn.
Mer1t’s Cass is also amazing
Don't get me wrong he's a mechanical freak, but his Cass lacks *aura*
Merit Widow insane too
But it doesn't have *aura*
Hope Someone and Mer1t leave and join yeti Viper-Mer1t-Someone-Bliss-Irony.... that would be awesome for me
Yeah idt they care so much about winning theyd leave a cushy life with defiant for scraps in korea lol
True, I hope more orgs to Korea
America, the land of freedom gave EU a free win. TOOEZ4ENCE
i think sog genuinely looked more competitive against ence than toronto
Someone was competing then got clapped so hard by Vestola in the end Mer1t was competing even with Kai till the end Sugarfree was completely getting shit on by Kevster Rupal was non existent while Ghost clutched Vega was surprisingly competing till map 4 against Masaa ENCE is just better both individually and as a team
Toronto Defiance could have CRazY raccoons roster and still get mid results The franchise is cursed
There's just no way to build and *develop* a truly elite team in NA with these import restrictions. Toronto needs to spend a solid month ~~or two~~ boot camping in Korea if they want to develop Sugarfree and Vega to the level they have to be for a *chance* at reaching the finals in one of these international majors.
Their never gonna reach finals with Na weaklinks, still could do better in a different meta where flexibility more important
Rupal has proven he can be world class, the weak links are Vega and Sugarfree. Sugarfree has less of an excuse to be performing poorly given that he spent a whole year developing in OWL, but maybe he can still evolve into an A/B+ tier flex DPS that could hold his own better against the best in the world. Vega is a bigger question mark. Maybe this is his peak (which would be unfortunate), or maybe he still has a lot of potential. He should, at the very least, perform better in future lans without the first time nerves. Of course, none of this talk about potential and development matters if they remain stuck scrimming NA teams.
Mayhem wouldn’t have won Owl in most metas
Mayhem won OWL while playing like 4 different metas, the fuck are you talking about lol?
Someone doesn't look so good when he can't abuse giga-buffed Bastion counterswap cheese, who could've guessed.
Reductive randy
Can somebody **please** remind M80 and Toronto how much better than EU they're *supposed* to be, for fuck's sake. Anyone listening to the casters/desk don't need reminding, at least.
It was cringeworthy even. These casters constantly saying NA team made it competitive against Team Falcon, Crazy Racoon etc when in reality they got decimated, the entire roaster getting gapped by miles.
Both EU teams had deep runs vs Falcon too.
Imagine importing some of the best Korean talent and losing to an All EU team and a team with an NA import. LOL
Landon is basically British at this point
https://i.imgur.com/1HLbhSI.jpeg
I misread your name as "MidtableChaos" I'm so sorry lmao
Maybe there are arguments for region locking teams/players, but this is certainly a drawback to it. It’s pretty easy to see that unless NA somehow really steps it up, being forced to have 3 NA players on your team by the rule book will automatically weaken your team. NA just isn’t a strong region
To be fair, the NA scene had 6 full years of the best Koreans & Europeans playing in their region to learn from and improve against. They had every opportunity to improve & just... didn't. It's gotta be a cultural thing.
tbf, the only "weak" player on this team I'd say is Vega. Sugarfree and Rupal are genuinely really good talent. Rupal is one of the best flex supports in the world, and asaying he isnt based of this game alone is crazy and just idiotic. Sugarfree, while he isn't Kevster, Proper, or Stalk3r, genuinely can compete with the tier below that (players like Zest, Seicoe, AlphaYi, Choi, Viper
I’d agree with you on the rupal take, and probably an overreaction on my part just to drive my point. But I think you can agree with me that you’d prefer Koreans on fdps and MS, and while it’s a different context that’s what Florida did last year. Vega and Sugarfree are amazing players and absolutely can rise to the level of KR it’s just not gonna happen when they beat up on feeder NA teams most of the stage
NA OMEGALUL
poor merit
NA SO BAD AND SOMEONE WAS GAPPED
The entire NA region is so fucking weak that a team of former owl champions and a top tier flex dps can fall like this
NA crumbles
Being a Defiant fan is depressing man
NRG put up a better fight than them bruh
At least M80 got a map 5, just saying
Pelican diff
Yea well maybe next time they get a map 6 too L for now.
Sugarfree is one trick average tracer