Overwatch World Cup 2018 Group Stages Paris Preview

Sep 20, 2018

We are in the final stretches of the Overwatch World Cup Group Stages, and it will take place in Paris, France.

This week will feature one of the most anticipated teams, Team France, and the finals for the European Overwatch Contenders, which should be the second-best Overwatch Contenders Finals for this season. Don’t miss out!

But, first let’s take a quick look at Team United Kingdom, which is expected to be one of two finalists for this group stage.

◆ 2017 – Quarterfinalists
◆ 2016 – Did Not Qualify

United Kingdom has the 4^th highest SR average in the world. They are even higher than other notable countries like Canada, Finland, Sweden and even France. So, it is not surprising to see that United Kingdom has become one of the powerhouse teams.

Overwatch World Cup! Introducing Team UK! GOD SAVE THE QUEEN!
By Unit Lost – Great British Gaming

Team United Kingdom will sport solid players from the Overwatch League and Overwatch Contenders. Here are a couple of players that you should be on the lookout for:

ChrisTFer – 6nakes

ChrisTFer is the main tank for the European team, 6nakes, and also the main tank for Team UK. If you think about the top tanks in Europe, ChrisTFer might not be a tank that is in people’s minds. As a matter of fact, a lot of people who follow the European scene questioned the team’s decision on choosing ChrisTFer over Fusions, the current main tank from British Hurricane, who is also another fantastic player. However, ChrisTFer, in my opinion, is a pretty underrated tank. While he is no Fissure or Gesture, his performance in Season 2 of Contenders has been quite good, and he has made fewer mistakes compared to his performance in Season 1. He also knows how to play aggressively when he needs to. He is a solid player that people should be on the lookout for this week.

Kyb – British Hurricane

Kyb is the main DPS for British Hurricanes. Despite being a dominant champion in Season 1, the Hurricane had a fallout and an unsuccessful run in Season 2. However, Kyb is still the star DPS for the team, and you can expect him to be one for the UK. In Season 1, he was mostly known for his Genji and Sombra, and he was excellent with both. For this patch, we can expect him to excel with amazing Sombra’s EMP timings, and if the team is opting to run tank heavy compositions, you can expect him to play Zarya or even Brigitte.

◆ 2017 – Semi-finalist
◆ 2018 – Quarterfinalist

In 2018, the French team will bring some of the core members of Rogue (AKM, Nicogdh, SoOn, Unk0e, Winz) along with BenBest, former Young & Beautiful main tank, and Poko from Philadelphia Fusion as their flex off-tank.

Team France Overwatch World Cup 2018 | #AVECLE6 by AlphaCast

Team France has been a controversial team. There has been a lot of doubts about the French lineup, and a lot of controversy over their decision to choose two of the players: AKM and Winz.

Winz, according to Master Overwatch, is bordering between Diamond/Masters with a rank of 3490, and a lot of people have been asking why he was chosen over players who have been competing competently in Contenders.

Similarly, the team has been criticized for choosing AKM when his French teammate SoOn has a similar hero pool as him and is arguably better. This raised a lot of questions and concerns in the community. However, AKM responded by admitting that he had performed worse than Asking but that was because he was playing in EU and had “200 ping” and promised to work hard for Team France, stating that he is the only player that can play Pharah in the team.

Daemon, the Head Coach for Team France, also made some responses in an interview (translation provided by Haxeu on Reddit) over the choices. He stated that choosing Winz was the hardest because he had many doubts at the beginning. However, he was impressed “not only by what he brings in terms of communication, leadership, strategy, and team environment but also by his overall gameplay by Mercy.” Winz, according to DaemoN, was truly prepared for the meta and the high levels of play despite being out of the competitive scene for so long.

In my humble opinion, I believe that the community should give the French team the benefit of the doubt because of how thorough their selection process was. They trialed over two different phases and close to 70 players participated in it. DaemoN gave sound reasoning as to why the lineup was chosen over others and based on his explanations, the starting seven looks pretty solid.

One of the highlights for this weekend would be a big match between Angry Titans and Eagle Gaming. Both teams sport some of the most talented players, and I wouldn’t be surprised if many of the players participating in the finals this weekend will make it to the Overwatch League in Season 2.

Eagle Gaming is coming into the finals as the underdogs. They surprised the EU community when they unexpectedly beat Team Gigantti 3 to 1. Team Gigantti was dominating Group B at the time and even beat Eagle Gaming in the group stages. However, Eagle Gaming was able to adapt to the tank compositions that Team Gigantti was rushing in with and was beating them with their own game.

Angry Titans, on the other hand, have been dominating throughout Season 2 and cruised their way through the finals. They are now the favorites to take the whole series, but with Eagle Gaming coming up close behind them, no one knows what will happen in the series.

The two people that I would really like to look out for is: ONIGOD and Hqrdest.

ONIGOD – Angry Titans

ONIGOD is a veteran player who has been around since beta. His first appearance in a “premier” level tournament was in APEX Season 1 when he was part of Reunited with players like uNFixed and Kruise.

ONIGOD with the fade away Pulse Bomb

After its disbandment, he joined Toronto Esports for few tournaments until he joined Angry Titans. ONIGOD is definitely one of the stars DPS in European Contenders. He plays most of the hitscan DPS like Widowmaker and Tracer. However, for Season 2, ONIGOD has been on Zarya duty when they are running a tank heavy composition and would play a bit of Hanzo and Widow from time to time

Hqrdest – Eagle Gaming

Eagle Gaming’s lineup is composed of some of the core members of Gamer’s Origin, a French Contenders team during Season 1 of 2017s European Overwatch Contenders. This includes members like Leaf, Hyp, Hqrdest and other notable members like BenBest and even Poko from Philadelphia Fusion.

Hqrdest has primarily been a DPS player, and he was until this season. He has been mostly playing Zarya and letting Leaf and Nicogdh focus on DPS. This is not to say that Hqrdest is weak with DPS. In fact, he is a formidable Tracer and Widowmaker.