Last Night Was Some Damn Good Overwatch
Photo: Robert Paul for Blizzard Entertainment
Weeks deep into the third stage of the Overwatch League season, people were still concerned about the GOATS, 3-3 meta and how would the league move forward. Well, last night proved that there was still loads of creativity and excitement to be had during the regular season matches.
In our first match of the evening between the London Spitfire and the New York Excelsior, we were treated to a league first. NYXL Season 1 MVP Jjonak was presented with his own skin that will be available for a limited time for players on June 27th. League of Legends makes championship skins for the team that wins world’s so its cool to see OWL create something similar.
The match that followed was one of the best of the stage if not one of the best in of the season. Saebyeolbe brought the “married man meta” back to the XL line up with his Sombra play. London answered back after going down 2-1 in the series holding NYXL on Dorado to force a tiebreaker map. It was a nuts series that proved that both London and New York still stand as gatekeepers to the OWL title.
The Florida Mayhem/San Fran Shock match was a 0-4 sweep that started in bizzare fashion as Florida ran no tanks on the first round of the Nepal map. And it almost worked. But before long the Shock stabilized and went on to dominate the match. However, it felt so good to see the Mayhem put up such a good, creative mess of a fight against a title contender. Well…until BQB ran himself off the stage.
The night’s third match was one with heavy implications. It would be the first true test for the Shanghai Dragons as they look to solidify their stage playoff position. The LA Gladiators were on the cusp and looking to stay alive for the stage. The Dragons would prevail on the back of another massive performance from DPS player, Dding, and moved closer to another stage playoff.
The final match of the night was bananas. The Chengdu Hunters, known for their off-meta brand of play, came up against the undefeated Vancouver Titans. The match was supposed to be the unorthodox vs the masters of GOATS. What we got was a series of crazy off meta plays, great engaging team fights and Vancouver’s Haksal doing this with Genji.
If 3-3 wasn’t your cup of tea, then the OWL seems to be finally moving away form it now. Sombra GOATS, Phara play, even Mei and Hanzo made their way into the compositions last night. Every match had either one or both teams at some point not playing “Triple tank, triple support” GOATS. If you were looking for a week to get back into the OWL saddle this is it.
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