We are a little more than halfway through the 2020 Overwatch League season and this week’s matches determine the seeding of the May Melee Tournament. Why is it called the May Melee Tournament? Well, I can’t really answer that question but we have a lot else to talk about so let’s get started.
News and Blues
This week we have retirements, signings and transfers. The retirements sure do feel like they are coming on heavy this year.
Boston Uprising
The Boston Uprising sign off-tank player Punk. Punk has previously played on the Australian Contenders team Sydney Dropbears and then also on the NA Contenders team Uprising Academy.
To balance the signing out, Boston’s other offtank player Brussen retired from Overwatch.
Ex-Titans find new homes
In some positive news for some of the ex-Titans players that were released last week, we’ve got some signings on that front!
First Seoul Dynasty picked up SLIME:
SLIME is a main support player and will most likely sub-in for Tobi on the Seoul Dynasty.
Secondly, San Francisco Shock sign Twilight:
Twilight is a flex support player which means that the Shock’s support lineup is even more stacked with the likes of Viol2t and Moth.
And lastly, Stitch and JJANU got picked up by the Washington Justice:
Stitch is a DPS player which will give the Justice their second DPS player now that Corey and Stratus are gone. He will be playing alongside TTuba. JJANU is a off-tank player and will be in place of ELLIVOTE. Both of these players were signed on the newly allowed 14-day contract.
I’m very happy to see these players find new teams and I hope their new teams treat them well and they continue to thrive.
More retirements and signings
Hangzhou Spark have a couple bits of news:
- Architect was transferred from the San Francisco Shock to the Hangzhou Spark
- Coach yeah parts ways
- Bazzi retires
This was also very cute:
The Meta
This week’s hero bans are:
- Moira
- Orisa
- Tracer
- Mei
This week we mostly saw two kinds of compositions, we saw Winston/D.Va based dive or we saw Reinhardt/Sigma double shield. The obvious exceptions being the Chengdu Hunters and…also the LA Valiant who decided to opt into the Wrecking Ball based dive. Sombra also made a lot of appearances this week and we got to see some absolutely terrible but hilarious 0-person EMPs.
The Games
This week we had one big upset to talk about so I’m going to get straight to it.
Los Angeles Gladiators vs Boston Uprising
Going into this one everyone (including myself) was expecting a quick 3-0 victory. The Boston Uprising so far had only one win this season so reasonably predictions were not in their favour. Which meant that the series started surprising us immediately. With a newly signed Punk in the starting roster, the squad looked reinvigorated from the very first map which they won. The second map turned out to be a very close draw. The third and fourth maps were won by the Gladiators. But the Uprising seem to be good at Control maps and the next two maps were both Control maps which they won.
This six map series is the series to watch from this week. We also had player cams this week and the emotions on display from the Uprising players after the win were something to behold. Definitely brought me to tears. I hope this is the start to a upswing for the Uprising and that they continue to get wins.
Toronto Defiant vs Los Angeles Valiant
This series is just a fun watch. A very close series with a reverse sweep in it. Logix and Agilities popping off. As a Toronto fan I ain’t even mad that we lost this one, it was a well fought loss. I will call out one thing and that is OWL production for all of the time skips in this one. Folks, what is going on? These time skips are killing me, please fix them.
Miscellaneous tidbits
The Vancouver Titans’ new roster continue to struggle this weeks with two one-sided losses. These matches are painful to watch and I stopped watching the match against the Philadelphia Fusion after the first match because it just wasn’t worth watching them getting absolutely stomped on and not in a fun way either.
Speaking of struggling teams, over in the Asian region the London Spitfire looks absolutely lost in their matches this week, more stomps there, oof.
Concluding thoughts
This week’s matches determined seeding for the May Melee Tournament, you can find the bracket over here on Liquipedia. This is a single elimination bracket, divided between the NA and Asia regions. The Toronto vs Vancouver match for the 12th place seed should be interesting.
There are no hero bans for next week as all heroes are eligible for play in tournaments like the May Melee. I’m really curious what sort of meta we will see now that teams are no longer limited in what they can do.
Before I go, I leave you with this:
I’ll let y’all figure out what that tweet is referring to. See y’all next week!