The opening weekend of the 2020 Overwatch League has come to a close and this cat has some thoughts on the matter.
Talent
Lots of talent changes coming into the season, some caster duos gone, the desk shaken up. It is good to see Reinforce back on the desk and a hearty welcome to Custa (formerly of the LA Valiant). Seems like they are rotating guest analysts on the desk this year, its great to hear from Wolf and Achilios. Soe looking amazing as always! I will miss Danny and Mica.
We have some new caster duos, Hex and Jaws, ZP and Jake, Bren and Sideshow. So far from what I’ve heard ZP and Jake is my most favourite but that is not surprising as they already had existing caster chemistry from their days casting Overwatch Contenders. Time will tell how the other caster duos pan out over the course of the season but I don’t immediately hate any of them which is good (no Semmler/Hex equivalent this season yet).
Production
Surprising everyone Overwatch League switched to using YouTube Gaming for the live streams. So far so good, no hiccups on the YouTube end and the near immediate availability of VODs after games are over is a huge plus.
Lots of production hiccups on the OWL end however. Ad repeats, overlay mishaps (crunch time anyone?), scene switching delays. Hopefully these are first week jitters and something that will clear up as the season progresses. We did get some memes out of all of those issues so silver linings y’all. But seriously, I’m sick of that COD League ad already, let’s get some ad variety in here if we are going to have ads in the broadcast.
I’m still not reading the chat on YouTube but I’ve been told its basically like “boomer memes on WhatsApp because of the lack of Twitch emotes”.
The Games
The weekend started off with a match between the Toronto Defiant and the Paris Eternal. As a Defiant fan, it was very exciting to see this new roster come out and perform decently on their first showing. Great to see Kariv hitting some fantastic sleeps and Surefour popping off. Also, thanks Mr. Logix.
The Defiant 2020 intro video is also very good.
As for the rest of the games, the compositions seem fairly varied. We even got to see some dive compositions, especially fantastic to see Haksal on his trademark Genji with a nano blade from the legendary Titans support Twilight. Speaking of the Titans, Fissure is in as the main tank for them and so far so good, we’ll see how he continues to perform as the season progresses.
Some more miscellaneous thoughts on the rosters from this weekend:
- Paris Eternal – Xzi seems to be the star DPS player to watch out for on this team right now, his accuracy is absurdly good. We haven’t seen the full potential of this squad yet with Hanbin and Sparkle still on the bench.
- Toronto Defiant – the tank line of Beast and Nevix is the biggest question mark right now for me, I think how well they perform will be important in the team’s performance throughout 2020, the rest of the team seems fairly well rounded with experienced players
- London Spitfire – all new to OWL faces, Bernar on off tank and Babel on the DPS seem to be the stand out players so far. This team is one of those that needs watching throughout the season as the players develop synergy and confidence
- New York Excelsior – Nenne is back with a vengeance and its great to see Saebyeolbe back on his signature tracer. Of the new pickups, Hotba is the biggest one that stands out to me. Whoru seems alright so far.
- Los Angeles Gladiators – Birding is back! LHCloudy seems like a whole new player now that he is out of the Eternal, Space is still a fantastic off-tank.
- Los Angeles Valiant – KSP and KSF popping off on DPS. Their tank and support lines looking very good too. If this team manages to tighten up their mistakes they will be something to fear in 2020.
- Dallas Fuel – the DPS duo of Doha and Decay is incredibly powerful. Great to see my man Gamsu back on stage! I’m hoping this new roster is a sign of better times for the Fuel, 2019 was rough for them.
- Boston Uprising – honestly none of the roster really showed anything special this weekend. The Swimmer vs JJonak 1v1 was funny though.
- San Francisco Shock – Shock continue to show just how much carry potential this team has. Striker is just incredible on that McCree. Architect on the Ana was a surprise but not a bad one.
Concluding thoughts
A good start to the 2020 season! I’m very much looking forward to attending the Toronto Defiant homestands in April, the energy from the NYC and Dallas homestands seemed amazing. I hope the Toronto audience can bring that same energy!
Next week we have some more teams that will play their first games of the 2020 season and I’m curious what sort of performances they put up.
See y’all next week!