The new Overwatch Contenders season is in full swing – we are already in the third week – doesn’t time pass quickly? It’s a full schedule this weekend with matches Friday 11, Saturday 12 and Sunday 13. There are some interesting match-ups too, across regions.
Australia games don’t start again until next week, however China has two matches this Saturday:
- CC vs FG
- T1Q vs LGD
Europe and Korea don’t have scheduled matches, however North America has a total of four this Friday:
- FUN vs NV
- SW vs 1G
- XL2 vs UA
- ATL vs NRG
The Pacific region has two matches on Friday as well:
- HKA vs GX
- XVE vs PNX
The last region – South America – also has two matches on Saturday:
- LFTOW vs XTEN
- CVRN vs UP.
All in all, there are some pretty big names playing this weekend and with a few matches still open in a few of the seven regions, there is plenty of exciting stuff coming up.
While lots of these matches are relatively even in skills, there are a few that have a clear favourite to win. Naturally, all eyes are mostly on the three big Contenders regions – Korea, North America and Europe – but across all seven regions, players have been making waves in the past few weeks.
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Naturally, after last season, XL2 is expected to win its match against UA, much like Fusion University (matched up against the very popular Team Envy) is expected to do well in its own match-up. Alarm – one of FUN’s players – is one of the best Zenyatta players out there, praised even by OWL players, so that alone should give his team a bit of an edge. Both games are taking place a few hours apart this Friday, so be sure to catch them if either of them are also your favourites.
Matches featuring the winning teams from last season are always a bit more in demand than others, but the fact that this weekend only features one of last season’s winners – FUN – actually allows for other teams to shine a little more, and for those players to really prove their skills.
As always, Academy teams are generally favoured to win above those that aren’t associated with an OWL team – with 12 of the 20 teams being academy-affiliated though, that isn’t saying a lot. Still, the big names – UA, XL2, NRG, FUN, ATL and so on, are always fun to watch – whether they win or not. The fact that in North America teams no less than nine teams are attached to an OWL team is part of the reason the region is so popular in the first place – whether the teams that are playing this weekend will make their OWL affiliates proud remains to be seen!
