Overwatch analysts Wolf ‘ProxyWolf’ Schröder and Andrew ‘ZP’ Rush made some surprising predictions ahead of the Overwatch World Cup.
Despite most fans viewing South Korea as the tournament favorites, Wolf stated that it would be a “huge upset” if they won this year’s event due to their “outdated roster” and “low scrim time.”
ZP followed up Wolf’s assertion with the claim that team USA – who will meet South Korea in the semi-finals if both teams win their quarter-final matches – would win the series 3-0.
Both statements offer a stark contrast to the prevailing narrative of South Korean dominance at the highest level of Overwatch for the last two years.
I personally feel that it will be a huge upset if South Korea wins the OWWC. Outdated roster, low scrim time. I think the group stage narrative is disingenuous if this year’s Korea is touted as an unbeatable force just because of historical precedent.
— Wolf Schröder (@proxywolf) November 2, 2018
Gonna add on to this – My prediction for a potential USA – SK matchup is a straight 3-0 for USA. Many reasons to believe that USA is on fire coming into OWWC this year. Should be very interesting to see things develop. https://t.co/gKXve7HC17
— Andrew Rush (@TempoZP) November 2, 2018
The reason for South Korea’s position as favorites is well-established. In both 2016 and 2017, South Korea took home the trophy, both times without losing a series across the entire tournament.
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In the Overwatch League South Korea has been similarly dominant. Season One champions London Spitfire and regular season titans New York Excelsior are both all-Korean squads, and even on multi-national rosters many of the star players are also South Korean.
Going into the next season of the Overwatch League, so far it also seems that the majority of new additions are coming from South Korea. All historical signs therefore point to South Korea as heavy favorites for this year’s World Cup.
In the group stage for this year’s tournament South Korea went undefeated as well, taking the top spot over Finland in the Incheon Qualifier. Since then, however, the team has made some roster changes heading into the playoffs.
South Korea will look to defend their title once again at BlizzCon, with the World Cup playoffs taking place November 2-3. South Korea’s run will begin with a quarter-final match against Australia.
The schedule and stream for the tournament can be found here.