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South African competitive Overwatch - where to from here?
Jordan 'Twenty' Bouah weighs in...
In early 2020 popular South African Esports Tournament organiser VS Gaming announced they’d be dropping Overwatch from their yearly leagues: choosing to push focus to League of Legends, Dota 2 and CSGO. South African Overwatch World Cup Player and arguably one of the country’s most prolific hitscan competitors, Jordan 'Twenty' Bouah, explains how the title has adjusted, 9 months on.
When VS Gaming made their decision it was a huge blow to the scene. The VS Gaming League for Overwatch was arguably one of few, and definitely the biggest, Overwatch tournament. Twenty, who currently forms part of ATK Arena’s Overwatch team, says it was a disappointing decision:
“I was a bit disappointed with the decision as the VS League was the only South African Overwatch tournament that operated since the game’s release. I know many of the competitive players felt betrayed. I didn’t get too hung up on it though. As an Overwatch player you get used to these tough calls: look at the ping we deal with, questionable balancing decisions and announcing Overwatch 2 and then staying silent about it for almost a full year. We deal with it!”
While a few competitive players moved on from the title, the South African Overwatch community decided to take matters into their own hands. The community began to host their own competitions and build tournaments via the Competitive Overwatch South Africa Community (better known as COWZA). Previous Overwatch World Cup Committee member and well known player Lizelle “VirgoLiz” Smith led the charge organising a large tournament alongside ATK Arena that offered up a considerable prize pool and live broadcasts for a host of matches. Twenty says his experience in the tournament, which his team ultimately won, was extremely positive:
“ATK collaborated with members of the Competitive Overwatch ZA discord to create the Overwatch by ATK tournament. My experience in the competition was extremely positive. I love playing with my teammates. We’re all good company and we all try to practice 6 days a week, so this tournament along with the European Open Division was a great test to measure our progress as a team. The Overwatch by ATK tournament also shows that the local community has people involved that care about the player base and dedicate a significant amount of time to do what they feel is right. I think that is pretty special.”
Overwatch wasn’t the only title to be dropped by VS Gaming at the start of the year, but it was one of the few that seem to have weathered the storm and the Overwatch by ATK tournament is a great example of how the competitive player base chose to create their own opportunities rather than waiting for tournament organisers to do it for them. Twenty says that this really is a reflection of the people who run COWZA. They’re known for their ambition and their motivation to do more than they’re asked for. The hub itself is a great space for South African Overwatch.
Overwatch
© Blizzard Entertainment
Twenty also says the level of competitive Overwatch has improved in 2020, regardless of the loss of their “big league”:
“The level of play has increased a lot. Teams have been putting a lot of work into trying to understand the game and understand the strengths and weaknesses of different team compositions and how they match up. I know many teams have picked up some good coaches too to help them learn and improve at a faster rate. It definitely shows. The Overwatch dev team have also stepped up and started making decent changes to the game and meta. There was even a patch mere days before the Overwatch by ATK Finals - so it forced the teams to adapt and figure out what works mid tournament. I think that made for some insanely close and tense games. I can confidently say the level of South African Overwatch is higher than it has ever been before.”
As one of the best competitive players in South Africa and having travelled overseas to compete with the best in the world, Twenty has considerable insight in to what it will take to put local players on the global stage but he says it won’t be easy:
“It’s obviously an extremely daunting task to get our local players at the level they need to be where they can compete on the international stage. Especially with Overwatch being out for more than 4 years now. European players are crazy and all of their practice is just more valuable by default, because they don’t have to play with delay literally longer than their reaction time (not salty at all I promise). However, I definitely think we have players that have what it takes to get to Contenders Trials and maybe even Contenders. Our biggest chance in getting there would be to have all the players in a team move to Cape Town, for the best ping to Europe. They’d need to play on 300 fps setups, scrim at least 4 hours a day with coaching and additional time spent watching replays for self review. They’d also need to watch Overwatch League games to learn from players. It’s A LOT to ask for but if a team can have all of that they are almost guaranteed to be unstoppable in the South African scene and have a decent chance of making it to Contenders Trials.”
It is a big ask, but regardless of international success - the Overwatch community has been able to show the strength in competitive player bases and their ability to make their own opportunities. It may be the textbook model for other local titles lacking support, going forward.
