Team Australia - Final 7 explained



We’re making some pretty unorthodox decisions this year and although it feels like they are the correct decisions, there is no doubt that they won’t be taken well by everyone who is invested in the team (i.e. Australian fans).



I’m not going to go into detail about all of the specific roster decisions because the reasoning is the same across the board - these are the players who I feel will perform the best in the context provided. The variables here are talent, latency to Korea for scrims and LAN experience. It’s important to remember these variables for later.



The key things I want to make sure are addressed are,

1. We have only submitted 11 players to our roster

2. We are sending a player who retired (CKM)

3. We are sending 6 players and a coach



I’ll get the easy one out of the way - we’re sending 11 players because we initially submitted Signed (New Zealand DPS for Order) on our roster as he is a dual citizen. As excited as I was to import a player for the event, I felt that he didn’t add anything to the roster that wasn’t already there and realistically we would just be denying New Zealand one of their best players.



So we let Blizzard know and he was moved to the New Zealand roster, leaving us with an open slot and no time to add anyone. For the record the spot would have most likely gone to Fluro from Drop Bears, but getting any playtime would have been extremely unlikely either way.



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To address the second point we’re sending Ckm as our flex DPS player, who previously retired - He has recently gotten back into the game (convenient timing), and even though he is shamelessly sneaking back in for a repeat WC appearance, the reality is that we don’t see any competitive alternatives for this position.



He has somehow figured out how to play many different heroes at a high level in a region where most people can barely manage to play one. The notable alternative here was Winter (who was included in the top 12), however unfortunately he lacks experience and there is no distinct group stage this year to learn from beforehand.



I hope Ckm’s return is more permanent because he is a very talented player, but I understand his initial reasoning for retiring.



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To address the most important and likely most controversial issue - we are sending a coach instead of a 7th player.



My perspective on this is that the 7th player is almost always useless for a few reasons

1. I will take their PC during practice anyway to provide feedback to players who are actually starting

2. People will play even if they are sick because it’s the world cup and you can’t reschedule

3. If someone cannot play, it’s unlikely that the 7th player even plays their role anyway



Additionally, there is more context that applies specifically to the Australian team

1. Australia is less experienced than other regions. A substitute with less scrim time will not perform.

2. There are no heroes that we feel are not covered by the current roster as is, so flexibility is not an issue

3. There are no players on the current roster who I am unsure of so we don’t need insurance



It’s fair to say this is a pretty cutthroat decision but this is nothing new for the Australian WC team or for Australian OW in general. We are a small region and the barrier to entry is substantially higher both as individuals and as a collective. Making purely objectively decisions is a necessity.



We’ve made Blizzcon 2 years in a row and I think a big part of that (outside of our own hard work) is that other teams made decisions that were motivated by personal relationships and we didn’t, considering in both cases we made it in by just a single map.



So with all of that said we’re sending Face (@thefacefaceface) as our 7th member. He’s a former pro player and he has coached several successful rosters including Drop Bears, NRG and Talon Esports. We do not expect him to play, however he will take up a roster slot leaving us in the difficult position of only having 6 players on the final roster.



As the Australian WC team typically practices against Korean Contenders teams, having low latency to Korea is essential. This makes players who are either located overseas (Trill, Punk, Ieatuup) or live in Western Australia (Tongue) optimal choices if the position is too close to call.



In addition to the issue of practice latency, a lot has changed in the past year. The form of players changes over time and I think it’s our responsibility to give the roster spots to the players with the most potential to showcase their talent on the big stage on any given year. For this reason we will not be seeing a repeat appearance by Hus or Akraken from the 2018 team.



The competition will be more difficult this year with the massive increase in OWL players (and the resources now available to them). The reality is that Australia is expected to make Blizzcon every year despite being one of the most disadvantaged regions in the World where you can’t even find GM ranked games and the average pro salary is $500 a month. Living up to that expectation requires a different kind of thinking and I hope in that in hindsight that these will turn out to be the correct decisions.



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