Overwatch League 2022

[got_quiet]

When Overwatch League is going on it consumes my life. Friday through Sunday, at least three matches a day plus the two+ Asian region games to catch up on, as few as three and as many as five maps per match, that's about 6 hours a day, which actually more than my entire block of free time, but some of the games happen during work, so I'm catching up on them on the off days. So no wonder literally nothing else is going on with me right now. There's just no time for any of it when I'm devoting that much to the League.

Unlike a lot of other sports it's kind of common for OWL fans to not just watch the games in which their favorite teams feature but to watch every game. There's just enough time to do it if you're willing to just abandon all else. I actually will watch the replays on 1.25 speed to squeeze in a little extra time lol, but I don't think it helps much.

The season is almost over. The grand finals are the first weekend of November and then I'll suddenly have a fuck ton of free time again. It's been a great season actually. Interesting metas and a lot of oscillating domination between a number of closely matched teams. Some years it felt like there were clear winners but right now it feels like it could be anyone's game. 

It's hard for me to say that I'm a fan of any team nowadays because of how regularly entire rosters are blown up and players are shifted. I was a Boston fan in 2018, then moved to the Charge when they came in as an expansion team in 2019, and have stuck with them largely out of a lack of better options ever since. They were great in 2019, actually won a stage in 2020, blew up and became ass in 2021 to the point where they were maybe one of the bottom 3 teams in the league, and were saved only by the fact that at least two other teams had just blown up more violently. In 2022 they started out still in an awful state. They got one win off Valiant at a point where Valiant was still literally the worst team in the league, and then once Valiant started improving it didn't look like there was any team that Charge had a change of beating, but there were some decent mid season roster changes that seem to have turned things around. We picked up Piggy from the Outlaws after he left, and he's had a chance to play off tank this stage, which is very good for him. We grabbed Xerneas (formerly Yveltal), Farway1987, and Jimmy, all from the Hunters, so we're kind of like the Hunters orphanage now, but it's working out. Charge have been winning a lot more games and looking competitive in losses, and it's enjoyable to watch them again.

But it's also kind of a frustration because of course everything is shit and the team is sponsored by a MLM scheme, plus there have been some strange dramas happening. Eileen, who was a great player and important part of the 2020 season, was permabenched and then dropped, with the team indicating the reason was poor behavior and rumors suggesting either infidelity or bad behavior towards women. I've never seen any details though and when I've asked about it no one has elaborated, but with how often that shit happens it's hard to dismiss entirely. And then there was a brief blowup between two former players, Molly and possibly Develop, about bullying and racism and stuff like that. Molly was a great support player and it sucked that he didn't get much play time with the team. He's with Shanghai now I think. Develop had good popoff moments but also was dropped before things started to turn around. There was a lot of he said he said stuff about whether Molly had been singled out for criticism or if the coaches had been overly nasty and stuff. Really makes it hard to root for anyone when you know teams are possibly propping up bad behavior, not to mention to ever looming issue of Blizzard as a whole.

I still like a lot of the players though, and the broadcast talent, and there are clearly a lot of people who give their all for the game, so it's just hard to just say fuck it to everything. I don't spend money with them anymore but you can only cancel your wow subscription in protest once lol, and I've already done that.