Toronto Defiant GOATs Tournament brings back the past - Upcomer
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Toronto Defiant made a GOATs tournament.
Category:
Overwatch

Toronto Defiant GOATs Tournament brings back the past

Image of Michael Czar
Michael Czar
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Published: Sep 28, 2020 10:52 am

This article is over 4 years old and may contain outdated information

For most of the second season of the Overwatch League, there was one meta that prevailed—the infamous GOATs meta, which prioritized three tanks and supports. But, since role lock has made this meta now impossible, some players have wanted to go back to those times. With the Toronto Defiant agreeing with that notion, they decided to run a GOATs only tournament featuring players from everywhere. These players all competed for both bragging rights and a cash prize.

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How did the teams form?

To start, each player on the Defiant was a captain to their own six man squad. Here are the teams, thanks to a Defiant fan who annexed them all:

Team Kariv was highlighted by all Overwatch League talent, including former teammates: Indy “Space” Halpern, Scott “Custa” Kennedy, and Kyle “KSF” Frandansia. Agilities’ team was also highlighted by previous teammates, the most surprising being Ted “Silkthread” Wang and Christopher “GrimReality” Schaefer. Team Logix had some interesting players on it, from staple players Caleb “McGravy” McGarvey to underrated ones like Jeffrey “Vizility” de Vries. Nevix’s team was going to be the most unknown, but it did include some veterans, like Stefano “Verbo” Disalvo.

Numlocked literally admitted going down the route of playing with his old friends, even though none of them were Overwatch League level. Kruise just went full British and made an English squad. Surefour’s team included some popular tier 2 players, especially Anthony “Harbleu” Ballo. Zykk made an all French roster, and RoKy made an almost all Korean team. However, Blake “Gator” Scott was added in to RoKy’s squad, being on the original roster that invented this meta. Last but not least, Adam “Beast” Denton made a roster filled with old teammates and some league players.

How did the tournament games work?

The series were all best of three, and out of popularity, without the assault game mode. These lobbies were made with a workshop code (1GSV3) and modified a little. Basically, it was locked into GOATs only, and sped up ultimate generation and movement speed. The Toronto Defiant tournament started with a round robin, which led to a small playoff format.

This format proved to be both fun and entertaining; seeing teams play more for fun in the round robin before making it to the playoffs. The prize pool of this tournament was $5000 USD, adding some stakes to this tournament. Team RoKy won third place, but the champions ended up being…

Where does GOATs go from here?

From the tweets, it was clear that the community was excited to see this meta once again. Not only the fans, but the players too. A lot of the players post game mentioned missing this time, and the intricacies that went towards it. Plus, we only got to see a couple players from this roster play in the GOATs meta. Seeing them all play their own way with their own teams made it more fun to watch. But it is obvious we’re not seeing this on stage ever again.

Jokes were flying around about how this was free scouting from the Defiant on other players, but I don’t think it was serious at all. This tournament was made for nostalgia and celebration of the end of a season. I am glad players enjoyed this tournament and found joy in it all. I hope this shows that more organizations can make these fun tournaments for the off-season.

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Author
Image of Michael Czar
Michael Czar
Polish-Canadian game enthusiast. I've been entrenched in gaming for as long as I can remember, with my first game being Pokemon Yellow and my most played games being Borderlands 2 and Overwatch. I have a degree in Film Studies, but writing about esports just makes my job all the better.
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