We are in the final stretch of the regular season which means that the last few games for teams here will determine their overall season standings and also seeding for the season playoffs. This week had a few upsets and a meta in flux due to the hero pool restrictions in effect. Let’s get into it.
News and Blues
The only bit of OWL news worth talking about this week is the Washington Justice signing former Dallas Fuel DPS player Decay as a travel eligible player.
Regarding what a travel eligible player means, this is a recent change made to roster construction rules for the 2020 playoffs.
I am happy to see Decay on another team and I hope its a better experience for him than the Dallas Fuel.
The Meta
The meta this week was shaken by a new set of hero pools, the last before the post season begins.
The banned heroes:
- Tracer
- Genji
- Zarya
- Brigitte
This particular hero pool meant that teams were forced to switch away from the Genji heavy meta of the last few weeks and clumsily start playing either double shield or heavy dive based compositions again. Sombra was a mainstay of compositions this week. We also saw more Reinhardt this week which was nice.
Due to the meta in flux, some matches were more…hectic than usual. Namely the Atlanta Reign running a Bastion composition and it throwing the Paris Eternal for a bit of a loop.
The Games
This week we have a few games that were interesting, unfortunately none of them are from the APAC region which had a very quiet week, a bunch of 3-0s.
Paris Eternal vs Atlanta Reign
This was quite the series. Atlanta Reign decided to start the clown fiesta by bringing out the Bastion/Symmetra based composition which really threw the Eternal for a loop until map 4 which for some reason Atlanta kept going for the same Symmetra/Junkrat composition that didn’t work. And we now have a new measure of Overwatch time – the Saucy tire. AKM blade, your time is done. Ultimately, this series went to a map 5 tiebreaker which the Paris Eternal won, thanks to an excellent performance from Paris DPS star Xzi.
An unreal performance.
Florida Mayhem vs Los Angeles Valiant
This is the series to watch from this week. After the first two maps it looks like it was a clean 3-0 sweep for the Mayhem but the LA Valiant rallied against all odds and started a reverse sweep that is a testament to the mental fortitude and skill of all the players on the Valiant. To say that maps 3 and 4 were close is an understatement, any of those maps could have been won by the Mayhem and ended the series but the Valiant held on for dear life and won the tiebreaker map 5.
The clutch factor was real.
Vancouver Titans vs Atlanta Reign
Not a great week for the Atlanta Reign after losing 3-2 to the Paris Eternal, they were upset by the Vancouver Titans with a 3-1 victory. This one is worth watching to see the improvement of the Vancouver squad. Excellent performance especially from the DPS lineup of Dalton and Shockwave.
Wrapping Up
Mostly a quiet week with few close series and a couple upsets. Philadelphia Fusion cemented themselves as the top team in the NA region after their 3-0 victory against the San Francisco Shock this week. I almost forgot to mention that.
Next week is going to be the last week of the regular season before we head into the playoffs. Let’s hope we can end the regular season with a bunch of good series.
For now I leave you with this:
See y’all next week!