The long summer

The less we dwell on the first iteration of the Overwatch World Cup, the better. Long before Blizzard began to truly stabilise their competitive landscape, this global competition was a glorified popularity contest that served as a community focused marketing tool in lieu of the high caliber event it now is. Norway’s performance as well as many others can be disregarded as collateral damage in the dark ages of competitive Overwatch.

2017 allowed Blizzard to come closer to their competitive vision for the premier tournament. A new team selection process was introduced, “National Committees” of local experts were introduced to select players based on their competitive merits. This endeavour was of course aided the by fact that said players have had a year to create substantial evidence, documenting their skill within the title.

So, which budding Norwegians ended up on the 2017 iteration of the national roster? ONIGOD, at the time was an impressive DPS player for the debut roster of Toronto Esports. Invision and Decod, DPS and main tank (respectively) for the often struggling Team Expert, a roster which failed to make headway in the higher stages of competition. Beyond filling for Renegades during Carbon series, flex tank Iko, was receiving his first taste of truly competitive Overwatch through this event. Rounding out the team, were supports, iPN and Trob.The former of which has yet to have his breakout performance.

The roster is nothing stand out for the time, but the team performed well in their group. Finishing in the top half of the previous format allowed you to challenge a team from a different group at the same stage for a slot at Blizzcon. Here’s where the trouble began for team Norway’s 2017 run.

With the Chinese roster in their group, and France being the favourites in their paired group, the only obvious path to Blizzcon was to beat out their Chinese opponents to avoid the more dominant French side. Norway only suffered two losses in their World Cup campaign, can you guess who they fell to? The group winners, China, who ultimately lost in the first round of Blizzcon. As well as France, a roster which consisted entirely of one one of the best teams in the world, Rogue. To put it bluntly, there are few teams that would qualify out of this stage under the same circumstances.

To talk in depth about Rogue would detract from the main point of this article, but here’s what you need to know: In the run up to the Shanghai Qualifier, Rogue had won every tournament they attended in the previous six months. Taking down competition like EnVyUs and Selfless. Looking back even further, they demolished Lunatic-Hai in one of the earlier confrontations against Korean teams in APAC.

The first leaf falls

ONIGOD Tracer Pulsebomb Highlight from Angry Titans vs Winstrike (Contenders Europe Season 2)

This year provides greater opportunity for Norway in the form of seeding and development time for its ever improving players. ONIGOD, that new blood DPS from last years World Cup, has now made a name for himself as one of the most oppressive DPS in European Contenders. One of the key factors in his team’s run to the upcoming Contenders Europe final was his ability to pull of stellar performances on one of his signature heroes, Tracer.

Decod, Iko, IPN are all returning to the roster with another year of competition under their belts. Decod found himself on the North American Contenders roster, Last Night’s Leftovers. This was a team that was staring down OWL backed academy teams, with no tangible support of their own, and still made it to playoffs. When they finally fell to EnVyUs (Dallas Fuel’s academy team) in the playoffs, it was a close and gruelling series.