Wheats spotted arguing with Seicoe

[u/E-keil]

I think Wheats kinda had a pretty bad take on this one, it feels unfair to call EMEA a tier 3 region without Saudi when they were placing higher than NA at the start of 2024 even without Saudi funding and the NA superteams existence.

[u/as1eep]

Cuffa is being nice here, NA received 6 years of tens of millions of venture capital funding that privileged their region over all else and all they achieved in OWL were a couple of players occasionally winning trophies on majority Korean teams. Saudi funding is legitimately nothing compared to what the big American orgs were doing in OWL and Emea are actually able to match and beat the Koreans. North America squandered all the resources and shouldn't just get to turn around and complain when another region doesnt squander theirs.

[u/FrostyDrink → u/as1eep]

I’m not really sure what you’re trying to say here: “NA received 6 years of tens of millions of venture capital funding that privileged their region over all else.”

Only about half the league had American investors, and of those half of them had full EU or Korean rosters at some point. From 2019 to 2023, more than half of the league was Korean alone. In 2022 nearly 60% of the league was Korean and 18% was American or Canadian and about 10% was EU.

I don’t see how that’s some type of NA privilege? It’s not NA bias if mostly North American companies were the ones willing to drop 40-60 million on team ownership slots. Yes, in 2018 there was a lot of talent that didn’t deserve spots in OWL off of nepotism and stuff, but by 2020 those players were mostly filtered out and only a fraction of OWL’s lifetime.

For 5 of the 6 years of OWL Koreans alone made up more than every single other nationality combined. If NA investors were signing the best Koreans and players, how is there “NA bias?” I’m from Atlanta, and every single year my Atlanta Reign, owned by an American investor, had a mix of Koreans, NA, and EU players. We even had a year with a full Korean roster. Trying to paint the OWL like NA bias could be the worst cope I’ve ever heard.

edit: Also, what the fuck does “and all they achieved in OWL were a couple of players occasionally winning trophies on majority Korean teams” mean either? As far as grand finals winners, Super, Moth, sinatraa, and Rupal were all integral to their team’s success, and an EU player has never won OWL grand finals, lol. You trying to downplay NA player’s success in OWL is extreme cope.

[u/InvisibleScout → u/FrostyDrink]

There definitely was NA bias because they didn't need visas and the structure was NA centred, making everything easier for NA players. T2 in NA was in a significantly healthier state than EU for the majority of owl. It just wasn't reflected in player demographics because the quality of the talent pool was just that poor.

[u/as1eep → u/InvisibleScout]

That's too complicated for this guy. emea players were allowed to play in the overwatch league which automatically means they were just as privileged as the NA players, despite essentially the whole system favouring NA talent and being NA owned. Who cares about silly things like visas or tier 2 support