Three new Korean teams promoted to APEX S2 after Super Week

OGN APEX stands alone in the Overwatch circuit as the only premier league. Although its first season may have felt like a standalone major tournament with excellent Korean teams and a range of top Western talents, APEX has a set promotion and relegation system with plans for its next season well under way.

Super Week is how APEX determines which teams deserve relegation from APEX and promotion from Challenger, its online feeder league. The battle for this offseason has now concluded, giving us our new teams for APEX Season 2. For those who were enjoying winter festivities and missed the action, a recap follows detailing how three new Korean teams, and one familiar face, earned their spots.

The four teams which finished last in their groups for APEX Season 1 were forced into Super Week to battle for their right to return. There they faced the top two teams from Season 1 and 2 of Challenger, which runs twice as quickly as the main season.

The top two teams from Challenger S1 were LW Red, who finished unbeaten, and AF.Red. The top two teams from Challenger S2 were The Meta, who improved from a third place finish in S1 to go unbeaten in S2, and once again LW Red. As LW Red could not qualify twice, this last Super Week spot was given to the third place team from Challenger S2, Mighty AOD.

The four relegation teams from APEX S1 were Rhinos Gaming Titan, MVP Space, RunAway, and Mighty Storm. Mighty Storm disbanded before Super Week amidst an argument with the organisation about ethical working conditions, and were replaced by the fourth place team from Challenger S1 and S2, MVP Infinity.

Super Week used two GSL-style groups to sort the wheat from the chaff, with the top two from each group earning qualification to APEX Season 2. The winners of the Challenger seasons, LW Red and The Meta, were given a group each and were asked to select one opponent from the pool of relegation teams. The other teams would then be allocated randomly.

LW Red had first choice as the winner of the inaugural Challenger season. In a crazy move they selected RunAway, who had originally denied them entry to APEX Season 1 in the offline qualifiers as an unknown team. Luxury Watch tweeted the draw out, calling it a rematch; nanohana commented on the decision afterwards, indicating that his teammates were motivated by revenge - despite his personal desire to choose MVP Infinity as an opponent.

The Meta chose Rhinos Gaming Titan as opponents, and saw MVP Infinity and Mighty AOD join them to complete Group B. In Group A, LW Red and RunAway were joined by MVP Space and AF.Red.

Group A

LW Red

RunAway

MVP Space

AF.Red

Group B

The Meta

Rhinos Gaming Titan

Mighty AOD

MVP Infinity

From the outset Group A looked stronger, with two top Challenger teams deserving of promotion alongside the best of the relegation teams. MVP Space stood out as a weak link, having been annihilated in every game in APEX, but there were still three solid teams and only two spots for qualification.

LW Red immediately proved they had made a bad decision by losing to RunAway in their first game. After RunAway beat AF.Red a few days later, again 3-0, there was only one spot left between LW Red and AF.Red. In the final match of the group AF.Red went up 2-0, shutting LW Red out on Lijiang, before nanohana and his team mounted a comeback and made the game 2-2. Hollywood decided the fate of both teams, and it was LW Red who failed to push far enough on offense, setting AF.Red up for a future in APEX Season 2.

Without two Luxury Watch teams in APEX Season 2, it is presumed that the superteam formed from former Red and Blue, the roster that hoisted the trophy at IEM Gyeonggi, will be fielded in the former Blue's spot.

Super Week’s Group B was a far more open field. Going into the group The Meta looked ahead of the competition with RG Titan not far behind, and their first match ended in a close 3-2 victory for The Meta. MVP Infinity were surprisingly good in their 3-0 dismantling of Mighty AOD, but lost immediately afterward 0-3 to The Meta. RG Titan had to journey back through the lower bracket and could have secured their spot back into APEX, but despite putting up competitive performances only just beat Mighty AOD and were then bested by MVP Infinity in the decider match.

In a series of close matches, the fourth place Challenger team of MVP Infinity, invited to Super Week only after Mighty Storm folded, had come through the competition and earned their place.

Promoted (APEX Season 2)

RunAway

The Meta

AF.Red

MVP Infinity

Relegated (Challenger Season 3)

LW Red

Rhinos Gaming Titan

Mighty AOD

MVP Space

Three out of four of the teams being promoted are new faces to APEX, having previously been locked away in Challenger. Super Week’s results, along with the quality of the games played, is an indicator of how deep the talent pool in Korea is currently.

According to sources close to the teams, Cloud9 and Fnatic will be new foreign additions to APEX Season 2, replacing NRG and REUNITED. Rogue also indicated on their twitter, though the tweet was quickly deleted, that they would be returning for Season 2 with their revamped roster, alongside the assumed return of reigning champion Team EnVyUs.

If this does turn out to be the group of teams attending, APEX Season 2 will be the most competitive Overwatch tournament yet.