This week brings more changes as teams finish their announcements and formats begin to finalize for 2020. We begin by discussing the recent Breakable Barriers open tournament, a new open tournament that saw streamers, Contenders Teams, and casuals compete across 2 days. We go on to discuss this week’s announcements, including one player signing from the Los Angeles Gladiators and staff signings from Paris and Dallas.

Next, we discuss the recent announcement of the 2020 Contenders’ format, which sees play move towards a more complicated, weekly tournament style schedule. We discuss the changes in the relationship between Open Division, Trials, and Contenders, and the importance of consistency higher stakes. We also discuss Eternal Academy’s announcement of their return to Contenders EU, and talk about some teams that we would like to see return to Tier 2.

Lastly, we discuss the recent retirment of Custa, former support player for the Los Angeles Valiant. We talk about his play history, and his coming transition to the OWL Desk. We also talk about Jake’s transition to full time OWL caster, and theorize some potential casting partners. We also finally share some exciting news about one of our listeners reaching out to help a rising Contenders player get the gear she needs.

Hosts

Nick Zielenkievicz

Host of WoW! Talk! and The Tauren & The Goblin. Sometimes known as the Video Games Public Defender. Wants to play more Destiny and Marvel Heroes but WoW is all-consuming. Decent F2P Hearthstone player. Sad that he lost the Wii that had Wrecking Crew on it. Would be happy if the only game ever made was M.U.L.E. Gragtharr on Skywall-US. Garresque on Ravencrest-US.

Katie Grace

Katie is a long time gamer who has fallen in love with multiple genres. She started young by playing Nintendo 64, Spyro, and Blizzard games such as Warcraft II with family, then eventually moved into playing games in both my leisure time and as a occupation. She loves being immersed in different universes and exploring the characters that live in them, as well as just playing games for a good time.

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