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This Week In Overwatch Esports News: 19 November
Hello! We’re back again! This week has been full with off-season Overwatch League news. I can’t wait to tell you all about it!
We get to see the new team branding & team colours of one of the Chinese Expansion team: the Hangzhou Spark! The team decided to go with pink and blue to stand out from the rest. They even have Reaper donning the cotton candy colours in their announcement tweet!
We are Hangzhou Spark! ?*??(???*)??* pic.twitter.com/yq63oaseQw
— Hangzhou Spark (@Hangzhou_Spark) November 15, 2018
The colour choices also had the community speculating whether team Runaway, who won the Contenders Korea, are signed with Hangzhou Spark. Runaway has always been known as “the team who wears pink”, and fans are going wild speculating on seeing the likes of Stitch, Haksal, Bumper, & the rest of former RunAway players reemerging in pink uniforms.
I am 100% sure that Hangzhou’s merchandise will be selling like hot cakes as shown by one of my favourite OWL hosts, Soe!
Some outfits just give you that extra…spark, you know? #noleaks pic.twitter.com/estIAtYI00
— Soe Gschwind (@Soembie) November 16, 2018
In related news, Hangzhou also announced their coaching staff and players.
Here is our PINK coach team!!! ?(?°?°?)??
?Mask was the head coach of X6-Gaming. Sup7eme was the head coach of Team Seven, and YinDong was the head coach of LGD Gaming. Welcome to our Spark family! pic.twitter.com/P4ORGkIfyL— Hangzhou Spark (@Hangzhou_Spark) November 16, 2018
Their coaches are made up of one head coach from Contenders China team & two head coaches from the Contenders Korea team.
Hangzhou also announced two new players: Guxue and NoSmite. I am very happy to see the talented Guxue made it to the League. NoSmite was formerly from X6-Gaming; he joins Spark already in sync with another X6-Gaming former head coach, Mask.
They are coming, the shield of Hangzhou Spark! (?°?°)??
Welcome Guxue and Nosmite!!! pic.twitter.com/7XsUPA5peK— Hangzhou Spark (@Hangzhou_Spark) November 17, 2018
Through Spark’s Weibo account, the team will be announcing two new players each day starting from today. I hope we get to see ex-Runaway players in their pink getup again!
The Esports Award 2018 was held in London earlier this week, and we get to see our favourite pros and personalities contribute to the show.
The winners are chosen based on 25% vote from the community and 75% from the EIA panel. Overwatch snagged the best Esports Game of the year and we could not have been more than happier and proud for the team!
The winner of the Esports Game of the Year @overwatch #ESPORTSAWARDS pic.twitter.com/CdIP2QC8ND
— Esports Awards (@esportsawards) November 12, 2018
That’s not all. Publisher Blizzard also won the Best Esports Publisher award and the Overwatch League Grand Finals won the Live Event of the Year award.
The winner of the Esports Publisher of the Year @Blizzard_Ent #ESPORTSAWARDS pic.twitter.com/gIquxdKcz5
— Esports Awards (@esportsawards) November 12, 2018
Goldenboy, who is also the host of this year’s Esports Award took home the runnerup as the Broadcaster of the Year. He was OWL 2018’s host & desk analyst during the OWL & OWWC.
The runner-up for Esports Broadcaster of the Year @goldenboy #ESPORTSAWARDS pic.twitter.com/nf22SPiQW0
— Esports Awards (@esportsawards) November 12, 2018
Congratulations to Blizzard & the Overwatch team!
Though it might be the off-season for the Overwatch League, two prominent teams have yet to dial down their competitive side. The Overwatch California Cup 2018 (a.k.a Cali Cup) took place last month; it was a home-and-away series between Californian rivals, Los Angeles Valiant and San Francisco Shock.
The first series was held last October; Valiant took home the actual California Cup (and treated the cup as they were supposed to) with a 3-1 win.
It's been a great few weeks with the #CaliforniaCup ?? pic.twitter.com/fcspg0NdJ4
— Los Angeles Valiant (@LAValiant) November 7, 2018
Shock decided that the Cali Cup should be brought back to their hometown this time and during the second series last week, they won against Valiant in a 3-0 landslide.
3 – 0 SWEEP BABY!!
The #CaliforniaCup officially belongs to the San Francisco Shock!!! pic.twitter.com/Kfwvqp8gm8
— San Francisco Shock (@SFShock) November 11, 2018
California sure is lucky to be able to host these two amazing teams.
*Los Angeles Gladiators sits quietly somewhere in the corner …..*
Dallas Fuel announced a new flex tank in the rosters earlier this week: rCk from Team Gigantti!
More than happy to be representing @DallasFuel in the @overwatchleague ! #BurnBlue https://t.co/hVfQ3ZbhJc
— rCk (@rCk_ow) November 11, 2018
Team Gigantti was stopped short in their quest to the finals in Contenders EU Season 2. Throughtout that season as well, Team Gigantti did not drop a single series until semifinals. Team Giganti was a force to be reckoned with and Dallas Fuel has found a valuable addition in rCk.
So far, Dallas now has 2 tanks -including OGE- and another flex tank: Mickie. Congratulations to rCk for making it to the big league!
The Philadelphia Fusion team has been blessed by having Chef Heidi preparing good & healthy food for them throughout the season. This could be one of the reasons why Fusion managed to make it until the Finals during OWL2018.
As a mother, I 100% agree that healthy meals are very important on a day-to-day basis. It’s good for the body & for mental health.
Perhaps realizing this, most of the teams are now hiring a proper chef for their players. So far, we know that team Atlanta Reign, Boston Uprising & Vancouver are looking for private chefs for the players. NYXL also have Chef Seong Yi as their in-house Food & Nutrition chef.
Are you THE Zinc Saucier and know the secrets to the essence of pure flavor?!?
Reign is looking for a cook that can chef it up with the best of ‘em.
If this is you, click the ?: https://t.co/hRbSOjAVCx
— Atlanta Reign (@ATLReign) November 11, 2018
With all these chefs feeding our favorite pro players, fans have been asking for the OWL Chef Showdown for Season 2’s All Stars Weekend.
I’m up for it, how about you?
In a non-League news, which also happens to be one of the surprising news last week was of Kephrii finally getting onto the right track to get into the big leagues. GE Pantheon KR announced this week that Kephrii will be joining the team in Contenders Season 3 Pacific Division.
Global eSports is proud to announce our Overwatch Contenders Season 3 Roster and welcoming our newest player to @Kephrii to our team.
We are looking forward to having him with us in Seoul, South Korea soon.https://t.co/SSLaMpEfn5— Global Esports (@GlobalEsportsIn) November 13, 2018
One of the most controversial streamers in the community, Kephrii is best known to be extremely good with hitscans, especially with Widowmaker but due to his behaviour & attitude, he was considered a risk to recruit into a team.
From creating needless beef with pro players (notably Taimou), cheating on his wife, sexting & being creepy to his female fans (thankfully there were no minors), throwing games & purposely being toxic in game & online; Kephrii has done it all.
His latest stunt of tweeting to Overwatch DC team to give him a chance in the league left the community in rage, and created somewhat a meme too. Many asked him and told him to go through the “Path to Pro” or a proper way to go up the ladder but his response that it will be a “huge financial step back” for him, further adding to one his list of controversies.
https://twitter.com/Kephrii/status/1045805749077782528
Many players from the Contenders sacrificed a lot of time & money to even be noticed by the teams. It sure is not a wonder for the community to call out Kephrii for his shortcuts calls.
Personally, I am not at all keen with Kephrii joining the Pacific Contenders what’s with the amount of imports dominating the Pacific scene. Kephrii might be given a chance to join a Contenders team, but we’ll see how he goes forward. I do hope he leaves his toxic behaviour behind and acts more like a pro.
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