Fran’s Overwatch Community Cup was an overwhelming success for not only the tier three and tier two competitive scenes, but for the entire competitive community. Personality, passion and love for Overwatch and community hype helped make the tournament such a success. It showed why people love the game and the community and with a plethora of support from Overwatch League teams, fans and even Blizzard, a possible positive indication of what competitive Overwatch outside of OWL can look like.
The finals were something out of a storybook with the casters hyping it up to great effect. Scion Esports were the young guns hoping to ascend to the top, while Doge (formerly Team Envy) were the grizzled veterans recently released and wanting to prove they are still one of the top tier-two teams in North America. Doge took the championship, but Scion Esports showed guts and determination. They can be a force moving forward.
Personality really shone through during the tournament. From the hilarious “ads” to the e-dating segment featuring Fran’s boyfriend Danteh of the Houston Outlaws, memes showered down on all the viewers making everything that much better. Speaking of viewers, the tournament peaked at just under 5.5K viewers, an incredible showing for what started out as a humble, passion project from Fran. I can’t stress this enough, the support shown from a ton of different parts of the Overwatch community was amazing.
Fran (partnering with Monkey Bubble for broadcasting) showed a lot of ambition, heart and passion for competitive Overwatch in ways that haven’t been seen in quite some time. It seemed like the first time in a long time the community celebrated something so pure and fun, just good Overwatch by people who love the game. Fran knocked it completely out of the park and should look do things like this more often because it might just be the catalyst for restoring competitive Overwatch to it’s former glory.
