This week has been absolutely filled with exciting games and fresh upsets between some of the mid tier teams. If you haven’t been keeping up with the competition, I highly recommend going back and watching the second round of #BattleForLA on Wednesday and the Philadelphia games against Seoul and New York.
The biggest trend we’re seeing in Stage 2 has definitely been Tracer playing a central role in team strategies. Teams with good Tracer players are starting to pull far ahead of the rest of the pack while teams with mediocre Tracers are slowly falling behind. For instance, The Los Angeles Valiant absolutely dominated Houston on Thursday with Soon’s pristine Tracer play, and Philadelphia’s Carpe went blow for blow with Seoul’s Munchkin and New York’s Saebyeolbe. San Francisco’s Danteh also played an insane Tracer against Dallas, scoring an insane 27 kill streak and 50% of all the Shock’s final blows. Even Florida, with the plethora of problems they have with their supports, had a really good set against Houston due to the prowess of Logix.
It’s becoming clear that every team needs a top quality Tracer player. Every kill matters more without the Mercy resurrects coming through, and no one picks off heroes better than Tracer. Houston and Dallas in particular have been struggling. They’ve tried sticking to their guns (pun intended) and continuing to run deathball-style compositions to make up for their struggling Tracer players, but it’s just not working. We’ll have to see how the rest of the stage pans out, but for now, you can bet that whichever team has the better Tracer wins.
The series today are:
- London Spitfire vs Los Angeles Gladiators
- New York Excelsior vs San Francisco Shock
- Florida Mayhem vs Dallas Fuel
How Good Are the Gladiators? – London vs Los Angeles Gladiators
The Gladiators have been a fairly strong if not consistent team in the Overwatch League, but they’ve never really had the breakout success of Philadelphia, Houston, or even Boston, which makes it quite difficult to pin them down. Lifetime, they have a record of 1-11 against Korean teams, and they’ve yet to face off against London, which is arguably the strongest one. When you take into account their mixed success against even the non-Korean teams, it’s almost impossible to figure out if they’re “good” based on numbers alone.
Earlier this week, I wrote that the Gladiators managed to find some success of the back of their secret weapon, Fissure. During the rise of Fissure, it seems Hydration, Asher, and Bischu have also stepped up their game within the last week, and that may be the tipping point for them. But is Asher good enough to take on Birdring and Profit? I’m not so sure. As much as I would like to cheer on the Gladiators (#SHIELDSUP), it’d be foolish to bet against London at this point in time: 4-0 London.
First Up – New York vs San Francisco
San Francisco is another team that’s difficult to rate. On good days, the DPS duo of Danteh and Babybay can look indomitable. On others…not so much. The Shock have an insanely wide hero pool and tons of compositional flexibility, but in their case, it might be more important to dig deep than wide. The results are stacked against them. Along with Florida and Dallas (and Shanghai, of course), San Francisco has one of the worst records in the league, and even though they’ve shown small glimmers of talent, it hasn’t turned to gold.
Interestingly enough, San Francisco has only played against one Korean team (twice) due to the format of the league, and since the Koreans are basically the overlords of Overwatch, the Shock has been largely untested. Both their series against Seoul were fairly one-sided but with a few outstanding rounds. London and New York are different beasts. New York has proven time and time again that they are the most flexible team in the league. It’s almost as if they’re always two steps ahead of their opponents in the game of compositional chess and strategic thinking. If San Francisco has scored a few upsets in the past due to some clever hero swaps and brilliant tactical play, they’re in for a surprise against New York. As well as New York has been playing, it would be insane to expect anything less than a 4-0 from them.
A Beautiful Mess – Florida vs Dallas
Oh god, where to begin with this matchup? Florida and Dallas are both the biggest trainwrecks of the league (except of course, as always, the Shanghai Dragons), so this matchup is essentially the junction of two massive disappointments…? It feels wrong to speak so badly of both teams, but there’s no doubt that they haven’t lived up to expectations.
Dallas is formerly the single most successful foreign Overwatch team prior to the Overwatch League. Team EnVyUs dominated the west for close to a year then went to Korea, competed in APEX, and brought half the league to its knees. It was impossible to topple Lunatic-Hai (now Seoul Dynasty) from their perch, but they gave everyone else a good run for their money. So it’s no wonder that all eyes were on Dallas in the Overwatch League, and I think that many people were expecting far different results from the fan-favorite team. However, from the very beginning, they have been failed to live up to the hype surrounding them. Their play has been inconsistent at best, and their roster has experienced multiple penalties for poor behavior. xQc alone has spent more than half of the Inaugural Season on the bench due to disciplinary actions of the league and Dallas.
Florida, on the other hand, is the remnant of Misfits. They don’t necessarily have the same legacy as EnVy or Rogue, but they were still very much contenders for second best non-Korean team before the Overwatch League began. Logix and TviQ were legendary in their time, but as assassins on the Mayhem, they have failed to match up with the insane level of DPS play in the rest of the league. Florida also has severe issues with their tank/support coordination which prevent them from capitalizing on even the best plays from their DPS duo. All in all, they have a ton of potential, but their performance in the Overwatch League has been nothing greater than underwhelming.
That’s what makes this match interesting though. So many things can go wrong. The result of random tilting, poor decision making, or mechanical errors could change the course of a game drastically at every turn. It’s completely unpredictable. For that reason, I’m not even going to try and predict what will happen…I’m just going to sit back and enjoy watching this beautiful mess.
EsportsJohn 