Overwatch World Cup: D-Day for group stages

The day has arrived for the start of the group stages to the Overwatch World Cup. It's been just a little over a week since the country teams were announced and so in this space of time our team has been trying our best to get as prepared as possible. We've practiced every day since the team announcement, excluding Saturday, primarily playing scrims against European teams. This is the quickest way to get into shape as a mix team, as simulating actual match conditions quickly exposes your flaws and allows for readjustment.

Playing as a 4-2 split of EDEN/SSG members in the side, the tempo naturally tends toward EDEN's original style of play with myself and Dup falling in as best we can. My objective has been to play fairly safe to let the DPS players continue playing in their normal way. It hasn't been easy - we've won our fair share of games but have also faced some strong opposition which has called into question our gameplay and hero picks at times. We've shuffled between roles, varied our pace of aggression and tried some new interesting picks which all in all has helped build some confidence across the board. I've settled into mostly playing Zenyatta, at times surprising teams with a heavy right-click charge to take out a support or DPS player before the fight starts, so hopefully I get to show you guys more of this.

All the players in our side have their own areas of strength within the game and the key to unlocking the potential will come down to how calm and collected we are on each day, as any game without calm reflection and quick reaction to the state of play can result in control rapidly slipping from you, and emotions taking over. As such it's certainly going to prove to be an interesting experience as we kick things off.

Our group consists of Germany, CIS/Baltic Area, Ireland and Poland. There's a clear split in how stacked the teams are (in terms of player strength) - Germany and CIS possessing a number of star pro players from renowned teams such as EnvyUs, Reunited, Misfits and Dignitas. The matches against Ireland and Poland are therefore must wins, as only the first two teams qualify for the playoffs and we need to find a way to create an edge over either Germany or CIS.

The first match is scheduled for 9pm South African time today (Friday) against Ireland. This should be a good litmus test for the kind of game we're bringing as we get warmed up for the remaining games on Sunday. I've set up my stream to showcase the matches as it seems doubtful any other streams will be covering it - details are below.

POV Stream: http://www.twitch.tv/suumpmolk

I'll also post any updates to the match times and results on Twitter: https://twitter.com/scoperzor

Looking forward to the games and all the support we receive.