Fissure talking about the pauses in Seoul Dynasty vs Guangzhou Charge

Personally I don't think there was any malice behind it, it was a legitimate technical thing that just happened to suck for the Charge. But to play devil's advocate...

It was kind of an important game for Seoul. Everybody thought they were going to be a top 3 team at the start of last season, and the first two stages were fine for them, they just got "unlucky" with the map differentials and missed both stage playoffs. If that was the lower limit of their performance then that's cool, you can play that off due to luck. But it wasn't, and they missed every stage playoff, and the season playoffs to.

It was probably the biggest overall story of the season, right? Seoul are still seen as a great team with some of the best single players in the game, but they're a huge disappointment and they know it.

They're representing South Korea in a pretty big esports league. That's a big deal, and failing that badly is a pretty big deal too. They promised changes, they signed promising new players, a really hyped new tank line, and why not put on a showmatch against another team? Host it in Incheon too, that's cool. Gotta show off your new, awesome team to the fans at home.

So, showing off your team, pick another team in your division, call it the Pacific Challenge, it writes itself. Picking an expansion team is also a good call, it's good for both sides, and if you do happen to have a few slip-ups, then that's cool, because expansion teams are an unknown quantity, and that can mask some of your own problems.

Losing this showmatch to a brand new team - one that's only been practicing together for a month, keep in mind - at your own venue, in a game that you're hosting to show off your new roster, that's not really something that you can laugh about and say "hey, they're a new team, they got one on us right there!"

Especially after the Charge exploded right out of the gates with that Lijiang map. Then Hollywood was kind of a comfortable map for Seoul, but probably not as comfortable as they hoped. Hanamura was looking pretty equal - Seoul had the upper hand after the first round, even. But then the Charge decided to cap both points in, what, 45 seconds?

This expansion team's about to go 2-1 up in a series that you called to show off your new-look team, I'd start panicking at this point because damn, that's a disaster in terms of your image. I get that it's a showmatch, but let's be honest here, nobody organises a friendly match just for the fun of it.


It's bullshit, of course. Like, come on, if anybody genuinely thinks that Seoul intentionally cheated by doing this then they're an idiot. The game wasn't totally meaningless for them, though. Even ending in a 2-2 draw, I'd still consider Seoul the losers here in terms of how they look as a team. Not a great night for them.

/r/Competitiveoverwatch Thread Parent Link - twitter.com