got_quiet | Entries tagged with owl

The regular season of the Overwatch League is officially over. While a lot of the games were fun and competitive, the management of the season has been maybe the worst in the franchises history. Just constant ball fumbling. The APAC region was so weirdly structured that I just stopped paying attention. Contenders teams kept randomly participating, and I didn't care about them or want to spend more time trying to figure out what was going on instead of just being able to, you know, anticipate a usual regular season round robin format where everyone plays everyone else a set number of times.

And the finals tournament coming up is also weird. There are 8 teams participating, and instead of an 8 team double elimination bracket which would be normal and also in line with what has worked in previous seasons, they are doing two completely separate brackets so there's a chance certain teams will just never possibly play each other just by their seeding instead of by their performance, and then the two grand finalists may not have ever faced each other though the ENTIRE tournament outside of the grand finals, meaning the chance that we are going to get yet another boring stomp fest at the end is significantly higher than ever before.

AND they backloaded the risk. In other words the early games with weaker opponents are double elim and the semifinals are single elim. So the top 4 teams will have a do or die match to reach the finals. It's just.. why is it all so uneven and complicated? Last year it was a simple double elim bracket period.

I don't understand how in something like 6 years, we have never been able to stabilize our league structure. Every time they find something that works, they need to get rid of it and replace it with something stupid.

And, I'm not even going to be able to watch live. (Yes, I know, the food is awful and there's so little of it!) I was thinking that maybe I would splurge and go to the grand finals live this year. It may be the very last year that's even possible, and it'd be a lot of fun. But my schedule won't let me. I can't complain too much. The conflict is that I am finally going on a different vacation, to Japan, for the first time since like 2018, and the grand finals weekend was the only time my family could do it, so that's when it's happening.

I have a handful of obligations on this trip. There are people to visit, business to do (yeah, it's inevitable) and I may or may not end up playing the tour guide for my family because I'm the one who can get by a little in Japanese and have been there before. But they are intrepid people who won't need much handholding at all so it should be ok. I'm just stressing about it.

Overwatch League started yesterday with a Pro-Am tournament, so there goes my spare time for the rest of the year. The tournament is this weird thing where OWL teams are competing alongside Tier 2 teams that have qualified. There's a round robin portion in groups and then there's going to be a single elimination tournament. The matches are first to 2 instead of three too, so all in all there's a hurried, sink or swim feel to the whole thing. The first day was pretty good and full of upsets. It's always hard to tell how the season will go from the first few weeks, because teams that look very strong initially can just have had good luck against a week opponent and teams that struggle can find their footing or just have lost to the eventual grand champions. But it's still something of an eyebrow raiser when two contenders teams end up winning their matches against OWL teams. With the Valiant it wasn't too much of surprise. That roster is literally fresh out of T2 anyway. But Shock lost both their matches and while they also have fresh faces Proper and Finn are still there. The copium is that Shock played at like 3AM KR time on ping, which is fair. We'll have to see how things change in the regular season I guess.

But I guess the main takeaway is that I won't be reading much anymore if I have so many games to watch.

I also am already stressing about the big work event that happens in the middle of the year. I checked my posts last year to see when I started stressing and I had managed to keep myself calm until May so this is a bit of a problem. And I have to do taxes still! I'm feeling the pressure, and can't really put things off last minute with so much building up. Gonna deal with it later though.

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A new thefridayfive got posted so here's some random survey questions. They're looking for question contributions so if anyone likes making little questionnaires you should send something in!

1. Forest: Do you spend a lot of time in nature? Do you want to? I spend almost no time in nature. In the past I would try to drive out to a park and walk a little at least but I've just been a little to much of a mess to make the time recently. I should though because It's relaxing.

2. Cereal: What do you usually eat for breakfast? I usually don't eat any breakfast at all. I'm usually rushing out the door late for work. When I do have breakfast it's usually toast or cereal.

3. Flu: How do you cope with getting a minor illness? I drink a bunch and stay in bed as much as I can. I don't exactly like being sick, but I also kind of like being sick? I donno, outside of congestion and sore throats it's kind of a pleasant experience? This may be nostalgia for when I was a kid, had conjunctivitis all the time, and was given some very strong medicine lol.

4. Worm: What sort of dirty/messy activities do you enjoy? I hate getting messy. I eat ribs with a fork and knife. I'm trying to think of an exception and I can't.

5. Bang: What's the last celebration you went to? A wedding!

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.

I've been writing these up but not posting them. Hopefully posting them all in one big ole post will keep people from being spammed by stuff they don't care about.

Going through these it looks like I got lazy and skipped a lot of games, even though I watched almost everything but the APAC games.

Warning: Super long.

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Even more Overwatch!

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In other news I'm hurting for study material for Japanese. It's not that I don't have a ton of stuff I could be using, but I'm not in the mood at all to use any of it. I didn't study at all this month, it feels like.

I did a write up of the last couple of the last games of the May Melee, but the whole issue with the Chinese teams trying to boycott Saebyolbe because he supported Taiwan and Hong Kong put a major damper on my enthusiasm. It just made me fucking depressed. The League seems to have stepped in and made the teams back off but I think damage has already been done. At the very least I just can't root for Guangzhou anymore. Like thanks for reminding me no Chinese company is immune from the CCP influence.

So now I'm teamless I guess, which isn't really an issue for me. I never really understood team loyalty anyway.

And I'm sadly relieved that a Chinese team didn't win, which is a stupid thing because the Dragons roster has no Chinese players! The players are working hard and probably are sympathetic to Saebyolbe but the stupid outrage has done its job and no one is going to say anything. So yeah, even though I did watch the games I don't really feel like going over them. I'll probably get back to it when the next stage starts.

Meanwhile I sat down and watched Castlevania's most recent season over the past two days and enjoyed it. It was basically more of the same imo, and went by very fast, but the ending was satisfying enough, which was what I was worried about mostly.

( Castlevania Spoilers )

So many games, Jesus Christ. The May Tournament is next week and then there will a brief break where maybe I can finish up some of these Disco Elysium things I'm working on.

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More long winded notes about OWL matches, uninteresting to all but the overly invested.

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As an aside, Bren and Sideshow's commentary has gotten very good. They were always decent but I think they both upped they analysis game this year and are a lot of fun to listen to.

A bit late but here's the quick overview of Sunday's games. Long story short, my team got bodied and there was an intense and exciting game between Houston and San Francisco that I'm trying to use to lure my friends into watching with me.

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In other news I'm actually reading a book right now. It's a collection of short essays called The Age of Waiting. It's good but also hits on some emotional stuff so it's been difficult for me to get through.

Ok, it's League time. If you don't watch or care the below will be unbelievably boring or meaningless to you.

But... if you are curious about the Overwatch League and want a run down on any of the teams or anything I will chat anyone's ear off about it. I can't get any of my friends to care so all I have is Reddit to chat with which is... okay but not quite the same.

Anyway, my notes from the first few games of the season:

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This weekend was a friendly show tournament among the Chinese OWL teams. It was a good way to get a sense of the new rosters for 2021 while we wait for OWL to start later next year. I was feeling pretty ill and stuffed with brain fog when I watched the vods, so my takeaways are a little half baked. Comps are pretty divey and Tracer/Ball appear to be staples. There was some double shield in the SHD/GZC match but Winston showed up just as often, and got a lot of work done. All the matches were close score wise but in both the KOTH maps were pretty lopsided, which indicates to me more that attack is hard in this meta more than anything that the power levels between teams are wider than the score shows.

Here's the Bilibili page where you can see all the matches: https://live.bilibili.com/81

Some takeaways for the teams (with spoilers):

Guangzhou Charge vs Shanghai Dragons

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I finally finished Season three of Young Justice. It was a good romp. Still a kids show but with a lot of moments of maturity, and some fun twists and turns of the plot, keeping in mind that the good guys are destined to win. Nightwing gets a mild whumping which was a cherry on top for the season too. And one of the last scenes had Kaldur cozied up with his boy toy at a diner or something so yay, happy endings.

I sat down and watched a couple episodes of Batman Beyond after, and if you couldn't tell from my icon, that's my favorite Batman cartoon of them all, yes, including Batman: The Animated Series. That's a classic but the attitude and the aesthetic of Batman Beyond is just too perfect for me. Plus I love Terry and I love Grumpy Old Man Bruce.

I've also been watching Overwatch League regularly this season as usual. Covid made a mess of it, but the games were still played and it was still entertaining. Hopefully the League has realized it was a mistake to remove mid season tournaments completely from the schedule, because they increased the hype levels ten fold. This was the first season the team I was rooting for actually got a title too. I've liked the Charge since early last year but they were hands down my faves this year and they actually managed to win the Summer Showdown. They've been perpetual underdogs, probably because they got farmed by Shanghai early in the season, but they've always looked strong and always had close games. See below the cut if you care about esports.

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There are a couple of memes going around for showing who your faves are in the OWL so I figured I'd waste some time and do them.

First is a general favorite team meme. The template is Here

And here's mine filled out:
( Big ole team chart and blathering )

There's another meme for noting down your favorite member of each team, and here's mine:
( More team charts! )

That one's kinda self explanatory so I'll quit with the rambling.

In other news I started watching One Piece and I'm loving it so far! I always forget how much I love pure shounen stuff and then when I watch it again I get all pumped up and excited. The whole concept seems straight forward, but with a lot of opportunities to expand the worldbuilding, so I'm eager to see how nutty it gets.

The second season of OWL starts up on Valentines day and I'm hyped. Outside of Overwatch generally it's the only thing I'm "fannish" about at the moment, and I expect to watch most of the games for the season. Not sure how possible that will be given the expansion, but I almost managed it last season baring scheduling conflicts.

( OW Contenders Spoilers )

Stuff I'm looking forward to in OWL Season 2: