‘Chiu on This’ is a short and regular opinion blast

While many of the other Overwatch teams have decided to load up on more and more Koreans, the Paris team has decided to have a European squad with a core of French players as their base. This is a novel strategy and when I agree with in terms of the general management of the team.

For now, I’ll skip analyzing the players and how they fit together. Instead I’ll focus on the general gamesmanship of trying to run and win in Overwatch League. Right now, nearly all of the Overwatch League teams have decided to load up on Koreans. This is a completely valid strategy when you consider the amount of talent that comes out of the region and some of the inherent cultural values that come along with it. In addition to that, all of the best coaches have so far been Korean as well.

Thus it works as a shortcut if you want a good team, but don’t know how to make one yourself (as we see with KongDoo Dragons). What I like about what Paris did is that they’ve setup shop in a place that likely has underutilized talent in Europe. What I like about this setup is that Paris will likely have far less competition when it comes to scouting and buying out talent from the EU region as the other OWL teams are trying to get a majority of Koreans.

On top of that, Paris will be the first EU team and if the play their cards right, will always be the premier destination for any rising talent from the EU scene to try to get into first. Their ability to attract EU players will only go up once OWL eventually goes international as living in Paris will be more attractive for EU players than moving to NA.

Finally, you have to consider the alternative option to evaluate this one. Paris could have gone the Korean route, but would have had to battle with the other orgs over Korean players. They would have likely been lost in the shuffle and would have had to battle it out every year against the other OWL teams for Korean players. But by being the first to get to the EU scene, they’ve set themselves an identity and made themselves the team that the other EU players will want to play on in the future.

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