We are here at the end of yet another tournament. The 2021 Summer Showdown has wrapped up in a manner that was unexpected by basically everyone. Let’s get into it.
As a reminder, these are the four teams that made it into the tournament bracket:
- Atlanta Reign
- Dallas Fuel
- Chengdu Hunters
- Shanghai Dragons
Last week I mentioned that the Chengdu Hunters were the weakest of the 4 and that they would be eliminated quickly. Oh boy how wrong I was.
My predictions were in shambles were destroyed with the first match of this tournament. In a glorious and unexpected upset, the Hunters defeated the Fuel 3-1 in a match that would set a new narrative for this tournament going forward.
The new narrative being that the East teams had the clear upper hand with their Wrecking Ball based compositions and their adaptability while the West teams struggled to adapt.
This narrative solidified with the second match of the tournament between the Shanghai Dragons and the Atlanta Reign. The Reign looked thoroughly outmatched and outclassed as the Dragons got the clean 3-0 sweep without breaking a sweat.
Within the very first day of matches, both West teams were down in the lower loser’s bracket, leaving the two East teams to duke it out with each other. And boy howdy did they fight. In a 3-2 series with the Hunters nearly completing a reverse sweep against the Dragons but failing at the last hurdle. The Hunters went down to the lower bracket but I had a feeling we would be seeing them again in the grand finals.
Meanwhile, in the first of the losers bracket matches, the Dallas Fuel narrowly defeated the Atlanta Reign in a back and forth 3-2 series. This was a disappointing ending to the tournament for the Reign.
The Dallas Fuel barely surviving the Atlanta Reign was a bad sign for them. Indeed, in their next series against a surging Chengdu Hunters team proved to be their final nail in the coffin in this tournament. The Hunters swept the Fuel out of this tournament with another 3-0 and set themselves for a rematch with the Dragons in the grand finals.
The grand finals, Chengdu vs Shanghai. I expected this match to be close showcase of absolute chaos. What we got instead was a 4-1 series where there were some close maps but ultimately the Dragons looked like they had the right counter compositions for what the Hunters were throwing at them. The series ended in the most Chengdu way possible: with a C9. Or as folks are calling it: a Cheng9.
That’s it from me this week. As usual Overwatch League will be taking a one week break before matches start again and so will I. See y’all in a couple weeks.