Seita, the coach for Team Gigantti and part of the committee responsible for picking Finland’s OWWC team has shed some light into the decision making process. Team Finland recently announced their overwatch World Cup team, which left a few confused faces.
I’d like to shed some light into the World Cup roster selection and coaching situation.
Timing of the Group Stage qualifier excludes the possibility of any kind of real mix teams of OWL and Contenders players.
Players schedule:
OWL playoffs over for GLA&PHI 14.7 – 28.7 (depending on success)
Contenders Top 8 playoffs 11.8 – 12.8 (if qualified)
Players leave for Korea 14.8
World Cup Group Stage 17.8 – 19.8
Contenders Top 4 LAN 1.9 – 2.9 (if qualified)We also tried out some of the up and coming talent in Finland but mostly focused on the Contenders and OWL players we have available, in the end the selection was made between these two options:
Contenders roster with Team Gigantti 2018 core: LhCloudy, rCk, Masaa, Ripa, Davin, LiNkzr, Taimou
The team would have 1-2 full practice days to bring in a new dps player and make strats for the World Cup map pool before players leave for Korea if the team wanted to fully focus on the Contenders top 8 playoff game.OWL roster with Team Gigantti 2017 core: fragi, zappis, Biggoose, Shaz, LiNkzr, Davin, Taimou
The team would have at least 2 weeks to focus solely on World Cup with a 6 man roster and could also use the Contenders team as a potential practice partner.The decision wasn’t easy as both rosters have their own strong points on why it would make sense to send them, should I pick the proven veterans with loads of LAN experience? Or the team(5/7) I have been developing for the past 6 months which has great synergy, clear plans and future OWL players? I could find countless of reasons to send each roster but in the end I picked the OWL based roster to represent Team Finland in World Cup 2018, all of the OWL players are willing to commit fully on the World Cup team after OWL playoffs are over for their teams. This also lets the Contenders roster focus more on the ongoing season of Contenders.
Coaching the World Cup team:
First of all I would like to say that before putting myself as a candidate for the coaching position neither the Contenders or the World Cup schedules were announced. I assumed there could be a tight schedule ahead but I didn’t think of the possibility of having World Cup Group Stages while Contenders was still going on.
I feel like the Overwatch Contenders is the more important tournament for me (also the Contenders team pays my salary). I want to provide the best possible chance for my current players to make it to the OWL and I believe many of them have a great chance of getting there.
The schedule for World Cup got announced while I was making the roster selection and I asked all of the players personally if they would like to bring in a new official coach for the World Cup team as I will be prioritizing coaching the Contenders team, none of them were interested in that option. Even if I’m not going to be present for all of the scrims I will still try to keep everything running smoothly and make sure the team has a system in place for comps and strats for every point of every map in the pool. I have full faith that the team will be able work independently when I’m not present, these players are motivated, have good leadership skills and take initiative. They also have the experience of working with 17 different professional coaches and analysts during OWL season 1.
