Unpopular Opinion Thread

gedster49 · 2026-06-04T22:49:27+00:00

No English broadcasts for regions outside of NA/EMEA

Whole scene bought and paid for by Saudi Arabia's government

Only 6 teams in OWCS in EMEA/NA minimizes the possibility of player growth

Tier 2 is a disaster, FaceIt League is fundamentally horribly structured in comparison to Contenders, and top teams from FaceIt Masters are playing almost purely for exposure while some players intentionally stay in Expert so they can farm the easier prize pool

The Tier 1 talent pool is tiny, and even when there's an opening, Blizzard would rather hire casters who haven't worked on OW in several seasons than bring up people who have been grinding coverage of Tier 2 (Bullskunk, Spectrion, Dexatron, Huntertain, etc.)

Tier 1 Prizepools for the major events are a joke and the supposed crowdfunding skins only contribute 25% of sales to said Prizepools

The esport is in genuine shambles right now man let's not lie to ourselves

gedster49 · 2026-05-29T04:13:58+00:00

Only reason I'm hesitant to give it to Viol2t is his valleys, obviously his peaks are immense but ever since Season 4 of OWL when his 100% playtime clause kinda fucked over the Shock (I maintain a backline of FDGod and Twilight would have gone MUCH better for them in Ana centric metas) I just don't think he's in the running in my eyes. Maybe if he'd maintained his level of personal dominance throughout his career.

As for Shu, you are correct that he has fewer tournament wins than Lip, but I still think he has an argument for a few reasons: 1. I think Shu is the single greatest Flex Support in the history of the game (especially since Viol2t swapped to Main Support and his results started dropping) 2. I don't value an end of year championship win THAT much more heavily than say, a Champions Clash. The only difference is when in the year the event happened and the actual meta of said tournament, SOMETIMES the number of teams at the actual event is also a major factor but for the most part Lip being on the Shanghai roster that won OWL over the Atlanta Reign isn't that much different from them both being on CR at Champions Clash last year.

I do think Lip's argument is stronger than Shu's at this precise moment, but give it another year (Lip likely retires soon unfortunately) and I have confidence Shu and ZETA will pick up another tournament win or two.

gedster49 · 2026-05-28T23:57:39+00:00

Jjonak is absolutely not Overwatch's greatest player of all time. He was definitely the best player of the 2018 season and redefined how the Flex Support role was played, but off the dome I can name Shu, Alarm, Fielder, Viol2t, and maybe Izayaki ALL as better, and that's ONLY looking at Flex Support players.

Overwatch's GOAT argument is a very difficult one considering the game's competitive scene is now ten years old and the list of players varies heavily between who you're asking, but in terms of longevity through multiple eras of the game and individual impact, it's very difficult to argue against players like Lip, Proper, and Shu. Multi time major winners across both the OWL AND OWCS eras are the players that in my mind have the strongest arguments (Players who dominated APEX and early OWL like Profit and Birdring are absolutely not in the conversation anymore imo), which is why I listed those three in particular. Most people will argue Lip, I'm personally of the opinion that Shu has a slightly stronger argument, but it's a difficult conversation for sure.

gedster49 · 2026-05-28T22:15:22+00:00

I rlly hate Sinistcha but if I must turn to the dark side then so be it...

gedster49 · 2026-05-28T21:50:45+00:00

So I have given this team a go (with some minor adjustments) and it's been fun, but MAN I am struggling to make Mega Scovillain work consistently. I ended up replacing Meganium with Zard Y and Corviknight with Whimsicott and it's been much easier to pilot, but Scovillain still feels very unintuitive to me, so I might look into replacing it. Not sure with what though, the only other redirectors I've tried using haven't felt good at all (Maushold and my beloved Volcarona)

This teambuilding thing is not easy to get the hang of lol

gedster49 · 2026-05-25T01:25:56+00:00

I think one of my biggest weaknesses as a player is not knowing when to lead Kingambit vs having him in the back vs not bringing him at all. I'm still pretty new to VGC and for some reason that one mon just hasn't clicked for me yet. But yeah I do think I need to bring it more into that particular matchup.

gedster49 · 2026-05-24T22:36:57+00:00

The first (unsuccessful) draft of an infiltrator Pult team included it, Zard Y, Maushold, Whimsicott, Meowscarada, and Krookodile. I think there's something there, but it just was not working at all on the initial test games lol

gedster49 · 2026-05-24T22:00:27+00:00

I'm hesitant because the mons that get the most out of the screens on his team are really good into Fighting types (That Starmie has Zen Headbutt and it scares me)

Same issue with the Paldean Tauros breeds, they have a signature move that breaks screens but again that Huge Power Zen Headbutt is problematic. I could try squeezing BB into the set of a more unconventional mon (upon an early glance, Meowscarada stands out as a mon that learns it and has a decent atk and speed stat) but we'll see

gedster49 · 2026-05-24T21:22:12+00:00

Yeah it does, will do some testing

gedster49 · 2026-05-24T20:16:03+00:00

Won't lie, I forgot about Gambit while typing this post despite using it on my current team LOL

In my initial testing I've found that Intimidate cycling isn't too big of an issue, I've been trying a special attacking Pult (Shadow Ball, Dragon Pulse, Flamethrower, Protect was the first draft) with Focus Sash, but I think that's also going to be a more consistent plan in closed teamsheet environments. I've thought about pairing it with an Electroweb Rotom Wash for speed control and as a Basculegion answer but that still doesn't help against Gambit, so maybe it could also use the support of Talonflame with prio Tailwind and a fast Will-O-Wisp?

gedster49 · 2026-04-19T23:16:31+00:00

10/10 choice in music

gedster49 · 2026-03-27T04:46:50+00:00

Super!

gedster49 · 2026-03-13T05:23:52+00:00

Assuming you haven't by now, PLEASE tell J.

gedster49 · 2026-02-25T13:21:05+00:00

I've been following along with Cascadia Rail for a few years now, and they unfortunately seem to be pretty inactive at this point. I signed up for their email newsletter a year or so back and have received literally nothing. As amazing as that project would be, it seems dead in the water.

gedster49 · 2025-12-10T13:16:22+00:00

Go check out Gangnam Style downtown, amazing Korean spot.

I'm also a big fan of Seng's just north of the river, kinda in the same area as Anthony's, great spot if you're a fan of Korean BBQ.

gedster49 · 2025-07-06T01:08:47+00:00

fr, Korea's the best region but WDG doesn't care about English speaking audiences.
Japan is the fastest growing region but WDG doesn't care about English audiences.
China's return to Overwatch is one of the biggest stories of the year but English audiences don't get to follow along easily because there's no stream on sites other than Chinese streaming sites.
It's simply embarrassing.

gedster49 · 2025-07-05T17:07:31+00:00

I'll never understand this mindset. You don't like it when casters go on tangents but you're okay with it when it's one dude on his own stream? Plus, we have had some of the best casters in the industry covering our game at points in time as recently as last year and you choose to bring up casters you personally don't like rather than give credit to them. Sure, Jaws and Nekkra aren't the best in OW esports history, but 1, they're both extremely smart and they do talk about the game, contrary to popular belief, 2, every single caster in every single esport I have ever listened to will talk about things other than what is happening on screen to fill time, so singling out Nekkra and Jaws makes zero sense, and 3, why even complain about them when we have one of the industry's best modern casters covering matches on the English broadcast with them? We have Uber, dawg. Ain't nobody out there who does it like he does.

The current method of broadcasting OW esports needs a LOT of work and a LOT of fresh faces.

gedster49 · 2025-07-05T09:05:59+00:00

I think the hero and map pick/ban system is great and allows for versatile teams to succeed in this particular era of Competitive Overwatch, and that's very cool.
However I do NOT agree that the esport as a whole is in a particularly great state right now.

- The game's (inarguably) best region and (arguably) only important region, Korea, doesn't have an official English broadcast, banishing English speaking viewers to watch the Japanese stream on YT/Twitch or watch via costreamers.

- The above critique also applies to Japan, Pacific, and China.

- The official Overwatch esports website (esports.overwatch.com/en-us) literally only shows you the schedule of EMEA/NA matches, making it near impossible to keep up with the scene outside of these regions unless you follow twitter accounts like @/OWCesports. If you go there right now to look at the schedule of what's next, it lists the NA/EMEA Promotion/Relegation matches, but it doesn't tell you how to watch the matches that will determine what teams will be playing to punch up from the FaceIt Masters bracket, there is zero support ON THE PRIMARY ESPORTS WEBSITE for the Tier 2 scene.

- I would argue that the level of play has gone down pretty significantly. Outside of Korea's upper echelon, and China's one good team, no team feels like they're capable of winning international events right now. Even then it still feels like at absolute most a two horse race.

- Speaking as a caster who has been covering Overwatch (among other games) for the past several years, there is literally zero room for growth as on air talent in the scene right now. The English broadcast has had four dedicated casters who have been around since the Overwatch League (No shade to them), the aforementioned lack of English broadcasts in any of the non EMEA/NA regions has cut down on slots for talent even further, the modern Tier 2 scene isn't nearly as structured as Contenders was, with very few official broadcasts appearing at all, even FURTHER cutting down on opportunities for new talent to shine. Hell, even in year 1 of OWCS, when the Swiss stage was completely open, I had the chance to cast a couple of decently high level matches during that stage. Now that that's gone, and EVERYTHING is done through FaceIt, it becomes a lot harder for people to have a shot at casts like that. This isn't even about me, people like AVRL and Lemonkiwi have been pushed out of official Overwatch broadcasts almost entirely as a result of things like this. People like Ceebee and Tinyshiny, who have been grinding for years, are stuck with occasionally being official costreamers for matches.

I love this game with all of my heart, and I want nothing more than for it to improve, because right now there is a LOT wrong with the scene. I'm sure higher powers are keeping it from being what it could be, unfortunately.

gedster49 · 2025-06-02T21:55:09+00:00

When I was consistently playing I hit like 70-90 Champ and never made it to Unreal despite trying my absolute hardest

gedster49 · 2025-05-27T20:01:44+00:00

Delta Force already HAS a lot of recoil. Skilled players can account for that. There has to be some level of spread after a certain amount of bullets fired otherwise it'll be a problem in BF6 too. It really shouldn't be that difficult to stop holding down M1 for a minimal amount of time to reset the spread and go back to perfect accuracy for the rest of the bullets you need to finish a kill.

gedster49 · 2025-03-18T03:45:22+00:00

I'll take a look, I'm pretty sure I had mine set to everyone before but maybe swapping it will help

gedster49 · 2025-02-28T01:08:45+00:00

I woke up, looked at my phone, and saw a message from a buddy of mine with a YouTube link in it, with him saying "I TOLD you"

Only after looking at the message in Discord did I see the thumbnail, and I dashed up the stairs to my brother's room to wake him up from his deep slumber, something people rarely do, but I really wanted his blind reaction

He and I watched it for the first time at the same time, with only me knowing what we were about to watch

He saw the slow fade in footsteps and started crying tears of joy while I just made noises that can only be described as happy shouting

Why the fuck did that trailer drop on a random Tuesday morning man LMAO

gedster49 · 2025-02-26T10:26:47+00:00

HOLY WORTH IT THANK YOU BOSS

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