Last week I hoped that the Washington homestand provided some better games and whoo boy my prayers were answered. Let’s get right into it, we have some very exciting games to talk about today.
The Curse of the Unforeseen Continues
Coronavirus related woes continue, truly an unfortunate start to the internationalization of Overwatch League.
Talent and Production
This week there weren’t any significant production mishaps. A couple typos/errors in on screen graphics but otherwise a good week for the OWL production team. Good job everyone.
Great to see Goldenboy again with the announcements, he is doing great. Shoutouts to the Washington Justice for doing an incredible walkout along with that video they played. Just wonderful. Love to see what sorts of creative things teams are going to be doing at their homestands.
Also we got this.
The Games
This week, I’m going to try something a little bit different. I’m going to focus on three matches that I thought were highlights of the weekend.
Boston Uprising vs Houston Outlaws
I went into this wishing for a total clown fiesta of a series and honestly I need to be careful what I wish for because not only did we get one hell of a clown fiesta, we got some of the most frustrating but entertaining Overwatch.
This series went all the way to /seven/ maps. There were two draws. The most draws to happen in a Overwatch League match ever. I thought after the two draws surely Boston are going to be able to close it out soon but nope the Outlaws had a bit of a resurgence and the series was closed out with a 2-0 win for the Boston Uprising on Lijiang Tower.
It was great to see Mouffin and Jerry make their OWL debuts and they both played very well. Jerry has become a bit of a meme as well which had me shouting JERRY JERRY JERRY while the match was going on. Just a fantastic name to shout. Mouffin’s energy on stage was incredibly heartwarming to see.
As much as I was entertained by this series, the Outlaws are still doing pretty terribly and they really need to start cleaning up their basics.
Toronto Defiant vs Philadelphia Fusion
Going into this series, my only hope was that the Defiant put up some sort of fight to a Philadelphia Fusion that has been looking absolutely dominant and clean in their gameplay so far.
For the first two maps of the series, it felt like the Defiant were getting completely outclassed and it was going to be a 3-0 clean sweep for the Fusion. But after the half, the Defiant started leaning on their dive Sombra/Genji dive compositions more and were able to start a reverse sweep. Ultimately, the Fusion were able to win the fifth map but it wasn’t without one hell of a fight from the Defiant.
Overall, I was fairly pleased with what the Defiant brought to the table with their dive composition. Beast especially looks way more comfortable on the Winston than he does on the Reinhardt. Let’s hope that the Defiant continue to improve as the season progresses.
London Spitfire vs Washington Justice
Coming into the second day of the Washington homestand I was expecting the Justice to clean sweep the Spitfire after their loss to the Eternal on Saturday but what we got instead was something more ridiculous. This weekend seems to have been one for some absurd Overwatch.
The first two maps looked dominant for the Justice and then the half time break happened. I don’t know what happened there but on Dorado, they got /spawn camped/ on attack and only moved the payload ~4 meters. I have never seen a spawn camp work this well ever in a pro Overwatch match.
After that map loss, it was all downhill for the Justice, it felt like they were mentally boomed from that spawn camp hold (honestly I can’t blame them). The Spitfire were able to complete the reverse sweep and win the series with a 3-2 victory. The Justice aren’t going to be forgetting this series for a while and neither are we.
Concluding thoughts
Overall I would say it was a very good weekend for OWL games. We had some boring 3-Overwatch but we also got some extremely cursed but hilarious series and some good reverse sweep action. You love to see it.
Week 4 is going to be a Houston homestand and I don’t have high hopes for the Outlaws squad but we do have the Atlanta Reign playing their first two series of the season and I’m looking forward to seeing what they have to bring to the table.
Maybe we’ll get some more cursed matches too, fingers crossed.