Team GB ace takes potshot at London Spitfire ahead of Overwatch League debut for Paris Eternal
Paris Eternal are making a bid for fans from across Europe as they prepare to take on Overwatch League's reigning champions in their first-ever match
OVERWATCH League season two hasn't even started yet, but the first shots have already been fired in the nascent rivalry between reigning champions London Spitfire and league newbies Paris Eternal.
Talking to The Sun a couple of days before Paris' opening match against Spitfire, Team GB hero and Paris star Harrison 'Kruise' Pond made a bid for UK fans to leap to Eternal because, despite Brexit, they are the "only European team" in the league.
Spitfire's squad is entirely composed of South Korean stars, and Kruise was keen to point out how Paris Eternal's players are all European, as are most of the team's backroom staff.
With four players from France supported by the British Kruise along with Iceland, Poland, Finland Portugal and Russia, Eternal are by far the most European team in the league, with none of the other 19 teams having more than a handful of European on their rosters.
London Spitfire's management made it clear after their season 1 championship that the team wasn't going to be changing much in the offseason, and that any new players who came in would have to learn Korean to be able to integrate.
What is Overwatch?
Overwatch is a team-based first-person shooter developed by Blizzard Entertainment.
Unlike many other shooters, characters in Overwatch have one of three roles: damage-dealers, support, or tanking.
Damage-dealers do the traditional job of trying to outgun the opposing team's members. Tanks are there to draw fire and soak up damage while protecting objectives or their team-mates, while support characters can heal other players, boost their damage output, or protect them.
The Overwatch League is one of the flagship eSports competitions, with millions of pounds in prize money up for grabs.
12 teams competed in the inaugural season: New York Excelsior, Los Angeles Valiant, Boston Uprising, Los Angeles Gladiators, London Spitfire, Philadelphia Fusion, Houston Outlaws, Seoul Dynasty, San Francisco Shock, Dallas Fuel, Florida Mayhem and the Shanghai Dragons.
That's going up to 20 for season 2.
London has some company in Europe with the addition of the Paris Eternal, while Shanghai now have local competition in the form of Hangzhou Spark, Guangzhou Charge and the Chengdu Hunters.
The Washington Justice, Atlanta Reign, Toronto Defiant and Vancouver Titans have all come on board in North America as well.
All the players are full-time professionals, and all the teams are currently physically based around Blizzard's Arena in Los Angeles, though there are plans afoot to move them to their respective cities with their own arenas in the next couple of years once each region has enough teams for Major League style divisions.
INTERNATIONAL ROOTS
Spitfire were formed from the best players from a couple of high-performing teams in the Korean Apex Overwatch league, which was previously the top tier of international competition for the game before the launch of Overwatch League.
Paris, meanwhile, shares its core with the France team that beat Team GB to win the European qualifiers for last year's Overwatch World Cup.
Team GB got the last laugh, though, securing a fourth-place finish in the finals thanks to a win over Team USA that brought several of their players to the attention of OWL teams.
As well as Kruise joining Paris Eternal, Cameron 'Fusions' Bosworth found his starring role rewarded with a last-minute callup to the Boston Uprising.
Team play and co-ordination between players is as key in Overwatch as any team sport, and now more than ever due to the way the current rules seem to reward highly coordinated defensive play over flashy exhibitions of individual talent.
The second season of Overwatch League starts today, with a rematch of last year's final between London Spitfire and the Philadelphia Fusion kicking things off at midnight UK time.
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