Second day of the APAC Premier 2017 tournament, second group matches and the Afreeca Freecs came to play and ruin the fun for Miracle Team One and ahq e-Sports by dominating their matches. Let’s take a look at what happened. As usual, since it’s a new meta, let’s explore a bit the compositions and heroes … Continue reading “APAC Premier Day 2 Recap – The Freecs came to play”

  The battle of the daring dreamers and the defiant band of brothers. OGN’s APEX Season 4 has shaped up to become one for the history books.   RunAway has gone from a team on the brink of elimination, with no resources to their name and become a 2-time grand finalist in the OGN APEX … Continue reading “APEX Season 4 Final’s Storylines and Other Edible Notes”

The APAC Premier is the next big thing to watch right now but Blizzcon will be right after that and all eyes will be on it. In the previous Blizzcon, Blizzard announced the future of esports: a global, city-based, franchised League for Overwatch that will field the best players from across the world and a … Continue reading “Blizzcon is approaching fast and for Overwatch it must be another milestone”

The APAC Premier 2017 started today with half of the Group A matches and the teams that played were: Flash Wolves, Vici Gaming, Envision and MVP Space. If you want to know more about the match format and patch, read this piece here. The team coming on top on the first day was definitely Flash … Continue reading “APAC Premier Day 1 Recap – Zonda ran the show”

Control is the most unique game mode of all in competitive Overwatch and there are many good reasons for that. The symmetrical map layouts, the fact that there are no attack/defence rounds that teams take turns playing, the way you win the objective and the fact that there is only one Control point over which … Continue reading “The core problem of Control”

Every great team in Overwatch has struggled so far to win major titles without roster changes or additions and without adapting to the new metas. It seems like Cloud9 Kongdoo aka Team London (official name still not announced) is no exception to the rule and after their recent performance in the OGN Seoul Cup against … Continue reading “Cloud9 Kongdoo needs to add players and reinvent themselves”

One day remains until one of the biggest tournaments worldwide in Overwatch esports begins, APAC 2017. Additional info is revealed concerning the match format for the group stages, the patch that teams will play on and more. Let’s break them down. Jason Kaplan revealed on twitter hours ago that the tournament will be played on … Continue reading “Match format and patch for APAC 2017 have been announced”

Overwatch is a relatively very new game and therefore analysis has been somewhat scattered so far. I am writing this piece not to answer any incredibly interesting niche issue of Overwatch, but rather to lay down a broad principle which can be a lense to view a wide variety of situations. This can provide a … Continue reading “Effective Damage Theory”

On Sunday, October 9th, during the European finals of Contenders S1, everyone watching the broadcast was taken by a bad surprise when Misfits were allowed to pick Eichenwalde twice in a Bo7 match. When the two teams reached the second Hybrid, which was the number 5 game mode in the Bo7 match format, somehow Blizzard … Continue reading “What went wrong with the map selection process in the Contenders S1 EU finals”

My very first articles on WinstonsLab were about the behavior of Ultimates and how some aspects of theirs felt wonky. Those analysis pieces, two in total, were titled “Ultimate Inconsistencies” and in them I explored all the differences between the various Ultimates at that time, as far as charge rates and the proper way to arrange for … Continue reading “Blizzard removing Ultimate inconsistencies is a step in the right direction [Patch notes, October 10]”

Trying to find ways to measure a team’s strength through stats is no easy task, not at all. The biggest problem lies not only in the team’s individual strength but also their opponents’. The tournament format, as in the way a team progresses and reaches the top, is affecting teams’ performances either by boosting their … Continue reading “Can we base our predictions on Fight Winrate? [Contenders, APEX]”

With the announcement of Runaway and GC Busan to participate in APAC 2017, suddenly the tournament has become a death trap for the only Western team invited, Envision, from NA. Unarguably, the Western regions are under-represented in this tournament due to OWL teams finalizing their rosters and the Overwatch World Cup returning in a couple … Continue reading “Will Envision make it out of the groups in APAC Premier 2017?”