Overwatching the Competition

In the coming season 3 of the Overwatch League we will finally see the Overwatch League act on its creationary ideals. When the Overwatch League was created it was built with the goal of taking the best of current mainstream sports and combining it with the bests from Esports productions around the world as well. These being things such as the NFL and other large sports organizations and from South Korea which is the world’s Esports juggernaut. This year teams will finally take to local stadiums and arenas all around the world to represent their teams and provide their teams with physical locations to rep their support.

This year in season 2 the league began these steps by doing several away from home game events. Teams also began running their own more collaborative local events as well such as the Los Angeles Valiant and San Francisco Shock hosting a northern California VS southern Californian event earlier this year. This brings all of us awesome Overwatch Fans from across the world watching online together to local arenas where we can duke it out just like all those other sports fans we love. We can bring out flags, clothing swag and awesome artwork signs to events to inspire and encourage our favorite teams.

Already in the Blizzard arena in LA we see fans from all over the world coming to support their favorite teams or just their favorite players. With the recent expansion we have seen some of this love grow a perfect example being the new star player of the Atlanta Reign Daniel “Dafran” Francesca. Dafran was a popular online twitch streamer with a warm and lovable comedic personality which fans have clearly embraced in their support of the new expansion team.

With the progression in production value, sponsorship acquisitions and team expansions we have seen in the first 2 years of the Overwatch League I can’t wait to see what will take the show up another notch this time. In the upcoming posts I’ll be doing some analysis about the stage 1 playoff battles. I will also be doing some discussion on tactics in the current meta which should hopefully be changing soon. On my blog you may also find from time to time some info about the contenders or collegiate scenes of competitive Overwatch. This stems from my participation in the Tespa collegiate league now.

Week three of the Overwatch League has come and gone and teams seem to be settling into their positions. Don’t count anyone out just yet though as some teams have completed more matches than others at the moment so we may see some last minute titans rise to the top. The top teams saw their win streaks continue this week as well with the Vancouver Titans and New York Excelsior brush off any and all competition.

Also this week we saw the season one champions the London Spitfire finally break the curse that’s been following them since the inaugural season. In a tooth and nail battle between the London Spitfire and the Los Angeles Gladiators, that went to four games, we saw London take the match two to one.

As we head into the final weeks of stage one; the teams who have mostly lost their chance at a stage playoffs will start to experiment more with their team and player compositions. Maybe one of them will figure out the next big thing and dominate stage 2. At the moment it appears we will be looking at a Titans VS NYXL stage finals which will be quite the show.

The answer to life the universe and everything was how many losses the Shanghai Dragons would accrue before finally winning their first match. In a stunning three to one match, the Dragons surpassed everyone’s expectations and clutched that victory tightly. People were screaming and shouting; cheering them on almost begging for the win. When the final point was captured the massive wall-sized screens at the Blizzard Arena lit up saying Shanghai Dragons wins. People were crying stunned at what we had all been there to witness.

Selecting only one player to focus on from this series is impossible so we’ll focus on two. Jin-hyeok “DDing” Yang and Young-jin “Gamsu” Noh are two core members of the newly rebuilt Shanghai Dragons. DDing is a DPS starting player who showed excellence as Sombra in their matches. Gamsu is the Dragons starting main tank player who showed a mastery of every main tank in the game. DDing ran circles around the Boston Uprising while Gamsu ran headfirst into the enemies to defend his teammates with his body and health pool. The entire team moved fluidly and were nearly incomparable to last seasons roster. At times in the audience fans were anxious and being as wary as ever so as not to jinx the potential victory. If you want to watch the game you can find the full vod on the Overwatch League site.

While the Shanghai Dragons that were on full display on Friday are a drastically changed and expanded roster compared to their season one counterparts Gamsu was one of their newest players as he was traded last minute from their opponents, the Boston Uprising, to the Shanghai Dragons to take control of their main tank and shot-caller role. During an interview before the series, Gamsu had stated that it came as a shock that he had been traded but that he would work his hardest to make these dragons soar. The whole team was incredibly emotional after the match and deservedly so especially considering how dominant they were in maps one and two.

The dragons still have a long way to go before they can make they can reach their goal of stage and season playoffs but after Friday’s game, it looks like they’ve definitely got the spirit in them. I can’t wait to see the performance fo the Dragons going forward though no one should get too frightened if they don’t pick up a win in week three. The season and this roster are both young and they’ve got plenty of room to grow.  

Goats is a highly aggravating strategy that unfortunately is the current meta for Overwatch. Goats is a strategy that includes using 3 support heroes and 3 tank heroes. There is some variation of which 6 heroes, but it mostly remains stagnant. This creates repetitive situations of mirror matches between teams; a constant slugfest with no real action taking place.

This team compositions backstory is the opposite. It’s hilarious. There was an Overwatch Open League team named Goats. This team went on to go nearly undefeated the entire season solely using this strategy. Eventually, teams started to catch on and tried it themselves only to be rolled over by the more practiced Goats team.

As the second season of the Overwatch League began, we expected to see an abundance of goats compositions. This strategy is highly versatile. It has tremendous killing power, speed, and a massive health pool to boot. There were a few glimmers of hope in week one where we saw variations of team compositions appear. These glimmers came from the new Chinese expansion teams who are well known for their chaotic yet effective playstyle that focuses on hyper-aggression and high-risk high reward play.

The first week of season 2 is behind us and now that all the teams new and old have strutted their stuff it’s time to do a roundup of all the highs and lows of each one. The new teams were sure to make a triumphant leap into the arena and Friday was no disappointment. On Friday the Toronto Defiant, Atlanta Reign, Chengdu Hunters, and Guangzhou Charge all made their debut. All 4 put up excellent showings of their understanding of current Overwatch meta.  They also proved they were willing to take chances by ignoring it.

The Blizzard Arena itself along with the league has gone through several changes. As seen from the photo the casters have been moved into the audience so they can feed off our hyped-up energy. They also began to use the stage floor more and interact with the physical audience. These are all important changes as the Blizzard Arena is a model for all future Overwatch League team arenas which are either currently under construction or nearing completion. All over the world teams are hosting watch parties so their local fans can finally have a physical connection to the teams they support and love. The league calendar itself also changed allowing longer breaks between the 5 stages of the Overwatch League so teams can have a chance to visit these fans in person which brings the personal side of Esports alive. All these players were just like us before they stepped on that stage; passionate lovers of games who wanted to make the world listen and prove they were the best in the world.

The player of this week we’ll be focusing on is Tianbin “Lateyoung” Ma of the Chengdu Hunters. Lateyoung had an amazing performance especially considering his nearly one-year break from playing competitive Overwatch. As a pro player, any downtime while competing whether due to an injury or other complication can be the death of your career. The Esports world moves so fast that if you stop to look around at what you’ve achieved you’ll miss your only chance to continue. He showed a mastery of several heroes from both the tank and DPS roles. His interview after the game is even more telling of his drive to show the world what China has to offer in Competitive Overwatch. I’m confident he will continue a return to form as the season progresses.

The second season of the Overwatch League is finally upon us.  In Season one we saw inspiring moments of greatness and destructive failures.  As we head into season two it’s time we did a roundup of the bastion of returning teams and the new recruits who are preparing to leave their mark. This season is looking to be quite the spectacle for Esports as a whole.

The new challengers this season include the Atlanta Reign, Chengdu Hunters, Guangzhou Charge, Hangzhou Spark, Paris Eternal, Toronto Defiant, Vancouver Titans, and Washington Justice. Most of these teams have some establishing members acquired from season one teams.

During the off-season, many teams were quick to throw their best offers to prospective players and we saw many teams pick up fresh talent scouted from Overwatch Contenders and the Overwatch World Cup.

The team everyone has their eyes on is the Vancouver Titans as they acquired an entire champion team from contenders Korea, formerly known as the team Runaway. This is a seasoned team who have worked together for plenty of time becoming confident in every move their team members make. They act swiftly and strike for the heart of their opponents with no remorse This team is on my list for potential stage one finalists if not the overall league finalists.

A rising star I’ll be keeping my eye on this season is Fusions of Boston Uprising. Cameron “Fusions” Bosworth is a brand-main tank player at the spry age of 19. Fusions Showed the world his true strength during the 2018 Overwatch World cup as a core member of the UK team. His flashy Reinhardt plays stunned his enemies and led his team to a semifinal finish.

This year in the Overwatch League we can expect to see gameplay at a higher level than ever before. Numerous new free agents have been signed to teams and many more players have reached the age limitation of eighteen years and are now eligible to compete in the main league. I also eagerly await the rise of more and more newcomers to the league. With more players appearing every day it’s only a matter of time till the next level of competitive play is unlocked.